The god & Devil part 1

Matt started to make breakfast in silence, already dressed to work. In the distance, with his enhanced hearing, he could listen as Claire showered, slowly, carefully, most likely trying to clean herself not only from all the dirt and blood, but from the very experience she went through.

Kidnapping, torture, near-death… All because of him. His fault.

No one deserved to go through something like this and Claire deserved even less. She was a good person and the only reason she was involved in this at all was because she chose to save his life, to take him all bloody and hurt out of a dumpster and then care for him, all because she believed he was doing the right thing.

Sometimes, like at that very moment, Matt wished he had Claire's certainty, because if what he was doing resulted in innocent people getting hurt, then maybe it wasn't the right thing at all.

Trying to relax his thoughts, Matt focused on the smell of the freshly brewed coffee, waiting until Claire finally finished showering, got dressed and entered his living room. She was limping, walking stiffly and – even though his eyes couldn't see – he knew her body was covered in bruises; he could feel the difference in the temperature compared to the undamaged skin.

"You cook for every girl you bring home?" Claire asked, pulling the bathrobe he lent her closer.

Matt couldn't help but to smile at the carefree way she spoke; hurt she might be, but Claire was indeed strong.

"Nah, just the ones that keep me alive," he joked, opening the fridge as she sat down.

"You have a job or something to get to?" Claire asked. "Or are you one of those billionaire playboys I'm always hearing about?"

He laughed. "No, I have a job."

"Damn! Thought I lucked out. What do you do?"

"Lawyer. I have a practice, so I'm my own boss," Matt said, serving two glasses of juice.

"Lawyer by day, vigilante by night… How the hell does that work?"

Matt chuckled. "Yeah, I'll let you know when I figure it out."

Claire got up and sat at the table, wincing in pain. "Oh, shit."

"You just opened one of the cuts on your back," Matt mentioned, taking the plates to the table.

She was surprised. "How do you know that?"

"I can… taste copper in the air," Matt answered, grabbing the first-aid kit nearby.

Claire laughed at the absurdity of his answer. "Copper in the air," she repeated.

Matt just smiled and leaned close, hands almost touching her bathrobe. "May I?"

She hesitated for a moment, then said: "Knock yourself out, Houdini."

Slowly and very carefully, Matt touched Claire's back, feeling everything his heightened senses could grasp. He couldn't see, sure, but the amount of information he got from simply getting near her was much superior than what any normal person could gather with only their eyes.

"The swelling is down," he informed her. "Rib fracture is only a hairline. I couldn't tell before."

He opened the kit and grabbed some bandages.

"You have x-ray fingers now?" Claire asked.

"I can hear your bones shift when you breathe," he explained. "No grinding means nothing's broken."

"What does a hairline fracture sound like?" Claire asked.

He thought for a moment. "An old ship."

She laughed, eyes light glowing with surprise. "How do you… I mean, I know that you're blind, but you… see so much." She turned to stare at him. "How?"

Matt started to clean her wounds.

"I guess you have to think of it as more than just five senses," he started to explain. "I can't see, not like everyone else, but I can feel. Things like balance and direction… Micro-changes in air density, vibrations, blankets of temperature variations… Mix all that with what I hear, subtle smells, and all of the fragments form a sort of… Impressionistic painting."

Claire was in silence, thinking about what he said. "Okay, but what does that look like? Like, what do you actually see?"

Matt stared back at Claire, his senses drawing a painting of her.

"A world on fire."

They shared a moment of silence, both of them seeing each other using their own means.

"If all I saw was fire," Claire said, finally, "I'd probably want to hit people too."

They laughed and Matt got quiet for a few moments, allowing her to eat in peace as he got ready to leave for work. As soon as she touched the coffee mug, however, she said something that made him turn to her immediately.

"I met a guy that could do the same thing you do, once," Claire mentioned, wincing when the hot beverage stung her wounded lips. "Or something close, I don't know. I don't think he was blind."

Matt stared in shocked silence for a moment.

"What?"

Claire put the mug down, glancing at him.

"In the hospital, I met this guy… Don't really remember what he was doing there, I think he was checking on some patients, anyway… He was, well, he could see a lot too," Claire explained.

"How so?" Matt asked, curious.

"Well, he could tell people's injuries, just like you did now," Claire said. "Like, he glanced at a boy and told me his arm wasn't broken, just dislocated." Matt opened his mouth to say something, but Claire simply interrupted him. "I know, I know, could've been a guess, but after that he just looked at one woman and knew she was pregnant. Not only pregnant, but carrying twins."

Okay, that was a bit weirder, Matt admitted.

"The impressive thing, however, was what he did after," Claire continued. "We had this patient in the ICU, no one knew what the hell was wrong with him. Seizures, headaches, his heart stopped twice… He was gonna die soon at the way things were going and we didn't know shit about what was wrong with him."

"Let me guess, this guy found out?"

"One look! He looked at the guy for less than a minute and BAM! Turns out the guy had been shot a few years back and a piece of the bullet was still stuck in his leg. He was dying from lead poisoning." Claire smiled, clearly amazed. "We took the guy for surgery, removed what was left of the bullet and he lived."

Matt was still in silence. Could this man have gifts like his? In a world like this it wasn't impossible, but it was still remarkable.

"Did you ask him how he did what he did?"

Claire rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes. He said he could 'do things that other people can't'. And then he told another doctor that he was a magician." She sighed. "Somehow I don't think he was telling the truth."

Matt chuckled. "Well, in his defense, it's not something you advertise."

She nodded, half-agreeing. "True, but imagine if he did. If you did. How many people out there have to hide their gifts when they could be using it for good things, like this? I mean, you use yours to beat up criminals, which I guess is a way of helping, but you could've been an excellent doctor."

He smiled. That was something that had never crossed his mind.

"I'm flattered, but I think you're better at the stitching part than me," Matt joked.

Claire sniggered. "You did provide me with a lot of occasions to practice. Not complaining, though, it's better than staying inside feeding the cat all day."

Sensing her excitement vanishing, Matt leaned closer. He didn't want to say this anymore than she wanted to hear it, but they didn't have any option.

"Claire, they know who you are now," he said, serious. "And they are not going to stop. I'd like you to stay here, with me, just until I figure something out."

Claire was terrified, he could sense. She smelled of fear. But at the same time Matt knew that, if he hadn't heightened senses, he would never know. She was afraid, but she was not showing it, at least in a way normal people could see.

He knew Claire was brave, but it wasn't until that moment he saw how much.

"That's a hell of a way to get a girl to move in," she joked, even though her voice carried no amusement.

"It worked, didn't it?" Matt asked, continuing the game.

And then he did something he wanted to do for a long time. Touching her lips, very carefully, Matt leaned closer and kissed her. She hesitated for a moment, then kissed back.

"I was wondering if you were ever going to do that," she said.

"Well, I've been a little busy," Matt defended himself.

Claire just chuckled and started eating.

"So, do you have any idea what to do now?" she asked, as Matt finished getting dressed to work. "Why don't you go to the police? With all that you have on the Russians?"

"I wear a mask and beat on people," Matt answered, normally, as if talking about the weather. "Doesn't exactly mesh with police policy."

That's without mentioning the fact it wouldn't work. As a lawyer, he knew very well that any evidence he collected beating people up would simply be thrown out of the window, if it even got that far with the amount of corrupt cops and bribed officials out there.

Claire sighed. "You're going to end up in another dumpster if you try to take down the entire Russian mob yourself."

"Maybe I only need to take down one man," he suggested.

"Fisk?"

"Cut off the head of the snake, the body dies."

"And how do you know he is the head of the snake if you can't find anything on him?" she asked.

"There was a murder in a bowling alley, a man named Prohaszka, owned a majority in Kitchen Cabs."

He saw the light turning on top of her head. "The cabs! They were turning those over in the garage they took me to."

"Right," Matt agreed. "I think Fisk hired the man that killed Prohaszka so the Russians could take over his business. The garage they took you was enough proof. I have a trail to follow now."

Claire simply stared at him.

"Good to know my near-death experience was worth something," she deadpanned.

Matt grinned. "It is, isn't it? Usually people only get traumatized." He put on his jacket and turned to the door. "I'll bring some clothes for you on the way back."

Vladimir Ranskahov was worried. His brother, Anatoly, was missing and no one in town was able to find him. That had never happened before. Vladimir and Anatoly were inseparable; while not joined at the hip, they were always looking out for each other, at all times. It was how they survived so long in this business.

And now he couldn't find him.

Normally, Vladimir wouldn't be this worried, his brother was a strong man, just like he was. He knew how to take care of himself. But things were far from normal. They had Fisk breathing down their necks, Madame Gao unhappy with the lack of delivery of her product, a Masked Vigilante beating up their guys every single night and a fucking alien flying around, looking at them from up there as if he was an eagle and them rats to be hunted.

They were forced to accept Fisk's terms, to basically surrender their operations to the man. Vladimir had a bad taste in his mouth just by thinking about this, but the situation spiraled out of control. Liking it or not, they needed this to survive. And Anatoly needed to be there.

It was not the moment for disappearing.

Walking from one side to the other in his room, Vladimir tried to imagine where his brother could be, when someone knocked at his door.

"Come in," he said.

As if his day couldn't get any worse, the door opened to reveal Fisk's maid, James Wesley. Vladimir did not hide his contempt for the man as he stared at him.

"My employer sends his regards," Wesley said, smiling as he walked to him, "and his gratitude that his offer was accepted. There are still a few details we'd like to iron out before…" He looked around. "Where's your brother?"

Vladimir stared deeply into Wesley's eyes, not unlike a wolf.

"This is a thing I was going to ask you," he said. "Last time I saw him he was heading to see Mr. Fis– your employer."

Wesley smiled when he stopped himself from saying Fisk's name out loud; Vladimir almost snapped then and there.

"He practically kissed me when we agreed to terms," Wesley said. "He have a girl? Or a… boy he might be celebrating with?"

Vladimir's eyes were still unblinking, staring at Wesley, but before he could say anything the door to his office opened again. His man entered, face somber.

"We found him," he whispered.

Vladimir felt his chest hurt.

Clark watched as Natasha grabbed a bottle of expensive vodka and filled two glasses, pushing one to Sergei Mikhailov. The old Russian mobster – his arm properly bandaged after being shot by the same woman serving him a drink –, grinned and lifted the little glass.

"Breakfast of champions, huh?" he remarked, getting a tiny grin from Natasha as she lifted her own.

"The secret for a long, healthy life," Natasha agreed and both of them downed the vodka in one go.

The alcohol obviously wouldn't affect his Kryptonian physiology, but Clark almost felt his stomach twist simply by watching them drinking the vodka as if it were water, the morning sun glowing through the window of the old apartment. They had arrived not even ten minutes ago, directly from the Blue Moon Hotel, still dressed in the same clothes; Clark wearing a dark suit and Natasha her blue dress.

Sergei, thankfully, was dressed now, no longer punishing Clark's eyes with his inappropriately placed tattoos.

According to Natasha, that was a safe place, one of the many locations she owned throughout the city under fake identities. Not even SHIELD knew about it, or at least that was what she told Sergei when he very nearly panicked after whispering a single name.

Yami no Te.

Clark still didn't know what that was, who they were, but the very mention of the name was enough to spook Natasha and that didn't bode well for anybody. Natasha Romanoff was a SHIELD agent, a master assassin, the legendary Black Widow herself. She had faced gods and aliens and things that would make experienced warriors weeping in fear.

And she still trembled when she heard that name. Whatever it was, it wasn't good news.

"This brings me back to the old days," Sergei smiled. "It's good to drink with you again, girl. Even if you had to shoot me first."

She grinned. "Shooting you also feels nostalgic."

The old mobster pulled his shirt down, showing an old scar on his shoulder. He stared at her with an eyebrow raised.

"I remember," Sergei deadpanned and then he laughed.

Clark really had no idea what kind of relationship he was seeing there. Friends? Enemies? Rivals?

"How do you two know each other?" he finally asked, curious.

The Russian turned to look at him, his expression not nearly as friendly as before.

"Who's the pretty boy?" he asked Natasha, still looking at Clark.

The question seemed to amuse Natasha.

"The 'pretty boy' is a friend," she answered, glancing at Clark with a small grin. Then she turned to Sergei, her face losing the previous mirth. "And don't call him that."

Sergei nodded, apparently taking what Natasha said as permission to answer.

"Hell, we've met years back," Sergei said, thinking; then he glanced at Natasha. More accurately, he stared directly at her cleavage, without any attempt to disguise what he was doing. "She didn't even have any tits back then."

To his surprise, Natasha wasn't even remotely bothered by the commentary. She just looked back at him, her eyes going down from his face to his chest, and deadpanned:

"Neither did you."

The overweight mobster guffawed, looking down at his own chest.

"Touché, girl, touché. Ah, age will do that to you," Sergei lamented, still amused.

"Food and lack of exercise will do that to you," Natasha corrected, pouring him another glass. "You really let yourself go after retirement, didn't you?"

"The mark of a successful man!" Sergei exclaimed, boisterous. "You start poor and thin and finish rich and fat."

Natasha glanced skeptically at him, but apparently chose not to say anything else. Instead, she turned to Clark.

"I've met him during a mission, before I worked for SHIELD," Natasha said, tactfully.

When she was still a ruthless assassin, was the unspoken part. Sergei wasn't as tactful.

"Shit, it was a bloodbath!" he described, and Clark heard Natasha sighing. "It was a card game, you know, the high-stake ones held by the bosses. So obviously, everyone had to surrender their weapons to enter." Sergei grinned as he looked at Natasha. "Imagine our surprise when a little redhaired tyke fell from the ceiling with two pistols and started shooting everyone."

Clark widened his eyes. He already knew Natasha had started her "job" early – was forced to, really –, but still, getting confirmation that she truly killed people as a child was heartbreaking.

Sergei, of course, didn't think so. By the way he was talking, he thought it was awesome.

"The men started to run towards where the guns were stored," the Russian continued ", but the moment they got close the whole thing exploded." He laughed. "Holy fuck, you can't imagine the carnage. I thought everyone was doing to die, but I realized soon enough that the girl was choosing her targets very carefully and I apparently wasn't on the list."

"Lucky you," Natasha mentioned.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you still shot me."

"Why?" Clark asked, surprised.

"One of my men panicked and tried to hit her with a chair," Sergei explained, as if it were the most common thing in the world. "Idiot didn't realize she was killing the competition, not us, so I tried to stop him. The chair fell, she got startled and BANG! Right in my shoulder," he finished, showing the old scar again.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Big baby. As if I hadn't already apologized."

Sergei laughed again, drinking more vodka. "You never did! The Red Room did. They gave me a 'murder coupon'. I still have it."

Clark didn't know what this "Red Room" was, but by the context of the conversation they were Natasha's old employers; a tiny glance from her confirmed his suspicions, as if she was promising an explanation later on.

If Natasha wanted to speak about that it would be her choice, Clark decided. He wouldn't ask anything about that, not now and not later, he knew her past wasn't good – to say the least –, but one part of the conversation needed to be addressed.

"Murder coupon?!" Clark couldn't help but exclaim.

"Yeah, standard Red Room 'mea culpa' gift," Sergei explained. "I wasn't the intended target and I got hurt by one of their own, so they apologized." He grinned and tilted his head in Natasha's direction. "The girl visited me on the next day and gave me the news. But not any apology, not until today."

He looked at her, expectantly. Natasha just filled his glass again, her eyes never leaving his.

"Keep dreaming," she deadpanned and Sergei roared in laughter. Natasha looked at him. "Sergei here was a boss back then and it was a contact my employers didn't want to lose, thus the 'coupon'." She turned to Sergei. "Too bad you waited so long to redeem it, it seems it expired."

Natasha pushed her glass away, eyes still fixed on Sergei.

"Now that we drank and talked about the good old days, let's move on to the real reason we are here, shall we?"

Just like that, the illusion of lightheartedness was shattered and what was the meeting of two old colleagues became an interrogation. Sergei's expression turned somber, no traces of his earlier cheerfulness present anywhere.

"Girl, like I said before, leave this alone," he said, seriously. "You know as well as I do what these people are capable of."

Natasha, surprisingly, nodded in agreement. "I do," she said, but before Sergei could feel any relief, she added: "That's why I'm against them."

Sergei shook his head slowly, as if Natasha was being purposely stupid.

"There is no 'against them', girl! There is 'alive' and there is 'dead'. Guess which you'll be if you continue with this madness." He sighed, looking every bit as stressed as his voice indicated. "Followed swiftly by me when they realize I'm here."

"No one knows you're here but us," Natasha repeated, maybe for the tenth time.

"No? And what happens when I don't go back to my apartment? What happens when I don't show up to manage my business, to feed my damn cat, to show them that I simply didn't disappear off the face of the Earth?"

In silence, Natasha opened her purse and pulled a small, black notebook from it. She opened it, her fingers turning the little pages fast.

"First of, you don't own a cat," Natasha started. "You do own a cactus, simply because it's easy to care for and won't die if you forget to water it regularly, which you already did it, last night at 07:42 PM, before leaving for the Blue Moon Hotel. Secondly, you do disappear from time to time, or, more accurately, you fly under the radar for as long as you can, not exceeding, ever, the period of 48 hours." She glanced at him. "I suppose that's as far as you'll go to challenge their authority, which, of course, is not really a challenge if they allow it."

She eyed Sergei.

"Your bodyguards are in my custody, safe and sound in the next room, and I haven't alerted anyone about it. No one knows you left with us from the hotel and the footage will show you leaving with your bodyguards, in your vehicle, as if nothing happened." Natasha closed the notebook, eyes still unblinking. "So, I dare say we have, at least, a day and a half to talk before they notice something is wrong and decide to hunt and kill you. I suggest we make good use of it… For your sake."

It was like watching a dance or, better yet, a battle. Hit by hit, Natasha had cornered Sergei until he simply had no way to escape. Sensing that this was the moment, Clark approached the table.

"What exactly is this Yami no Te?" he asked.

There was a moment of silence.

"Yami no Te, La Mano, Рука, La Main, Tentáculo... The Hand, as it is known here, is a very old, very powerful criminal organization," Natasha answered, slowly. "And one responsible for unspeakable horrors all across the world, if stories are to be believed."

"They are more than just stories," Sergei added, his eyes glassy. "They are very, very real. And even worse than you imagine."

Clark tried to imagine the scope of an organization like that, capable of scarring even SHIELD agents and mobster bosses, an organization that apparently was big enough to extend its reach all over the world.

Worse, an organization capable of doing all that without Clark even knowing it existed. How was that possible?

"My… Old employers," Natasha started, slowly, "had precious little information on them and SHIELD has even less. But I did come across some stories, tales that spanned decades long on several countries. I would have believed them nothing but myths, a boogeyman to scare people… If not for Pyramiden." She looked at Sergei's pale face. "That's where you first met them, wasn't it?"

The old, tough and dangerous mobster just nodded, as if too scared to talk.

"What is Pyramiden?" Clark asked, confused.

Natasha took a deep breath. "Pyramiden is an old coal-mining settlement, located on the archipelago of Svalbard, in Norway. As I understand, it was founded by Sweden and sold to the Soviet Union in 1927."

"It's right next to the North Pole, cold even for Russians," Sergei added, his voice rough. "I swear you could see penguins waving at you from the distance."

"There are no penguins at the North Pole, only at the South," Clark interrupted, only to for Sergei to stare evilly at him. "But never mind that, please continue."

"The settlement continued to mine coal all those years," Natasha went on, "but by the end of the century, when the Soviet Union finally broke in 1991, it became less and less profitable until it finally closed all its operations by 1998. It's all but abandoned now." She raised her face and looked at Sergei. "But that isn't the true reason Pyramiden is a ghost town, is it?"

The Russian mobster was in silence for a moment.

"It is not," he finally sighed. Sergei scratched his eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, after the Soviet Union broke, we were living the golden days of the mob. We had an empire that controlled half the planet in our hands, a military superpower with no war to fight and no one to oversee it. The whole thing shattered, the government didn't know what it was doing anymore, and no one was taking care of anything."

Natasha nodded in agreement.

"That was a nightmare for intelligence agencies everywhere," she said, clearly for Clark's benefit, "so maybe it was a good thing that it happened before I worked for SHIELD. Corrupt government officials, ex-KGB agents, greedy military officials… They were all suddenly operating freely, with direct access to everything that used to belong to the Soviet Union. Military equipment – and I don't mean a few guns and bullets, but tanks, aircrafts, submarines, battleships and even some nuclear warheads were sold to criminals, terrorists, warlords and dictators all over the world. Some of those warheads remain unaccounted for to this day."

"And it all got through us," Sergei added. "We were the middlemen for all those deals. Not only weapons, but land, oil, technology, gas… Even mining operations." He sighed again. "That's how I acquired Pyramiden. Some corrupt politician traded it for… Hell, I don't even remember, but it made money, so I got it. And that was when they approached me."

Before continuing, Sergei grabbed the vodka bottle and took a long sip directly from it. Clark couldn't help but to notice that his hands were shaking.

"A Chinese old lady went to see me," he said. "Short, walking with a cane, completely harmless at first sight. She had some guy with her, a translator, that introduced her as Madame Gao." Sergei shrugged. "Never heard of her in my life, but she told me she was aware I was in possession of the mining operations in Pyramiden and that there was a certain archeological artifact on the island. Buried, so it would have to be dug out."

He glanced at Clark and Natasha, raising his eyebrows.

"In return, she would pay me an absurd amount of money. So I thought 'why the hell not?'. I had people and the mining equipment. She would pay for everything and if I happened to come across something really valuable I could just take it for me and give the old lady the finger. I mean, it's digging a hole, how hard could it be?" He shook his head. "Well, pretty fucking hard, as it turned out. What did I know about mining, right?"

Sergei slapped the table, frustrated.

"The soil was too hard, the drills had to be replaced every half hour and the fucking artifact was buried deep. I had to hire new people, buy new equipment, take all that to the island… All that to dig a hole in the fucking ground. My guys spent a year digging and got nowhere and that old lady kept pestering me every week about it, until I finally said 'fuck it' and told her the deal was off and if she didn't like it she could stick one of the drills up her ass!"

He breathed deep, his face red with anger.

"I told the workers to leave that alone and go back to mine coal and then I forgot about it." Sergei took a sip of vodka. "One year later, when I was checking my books, I found a discrepancy. Money flowing to the mining operation in Pyramiden. I questioned my guys, if anyone had authorized some sort of investment there – new machines, vehicles, stuff like that –, but no one had. So I tried to get in touch with my guys on the island, see what the hell was going on."

"Let me guess, no answer," Natasha said.

"No answer," he confirmed. "Phone wasn't even working. So I grabbed a couple of my people, got us a boat and went there to see it for myself just what was happening." He stopped, eyes looking at nowhere. "First thing I noticed, no one was waiting for us at the docks. That was unusual, since we always had people stationed there. Second thing? There was no one anywhere. Not a single soul. We walked through the streets, we got into some houses, shit, we went everywhere and we didn't see anyone."

He drank again, this time for a long while.

"I had this feeling on the back my head that something was very wrong, but I still didn't know what it was. That's when we heard it, the sound of machinery. Not coming from the mine, but from the old excavation, the one I had shut down. So we went there. Imagine my surprise when I saw a hole bigger than this room, going so deep we couldn't even see the bottom. There was mining equipment all around it, vehicles, and even an elevator installed. The noise was coming from deep down."

Clark also had a really bad feeling about what was about to happen.

"We got in the elevator and then all the way down," Sergei continued. "It took minutes until we finally got to the bottom and there was a tunnel leading somewhere, to where the noise was coming from. We were holding our guns when we went through the tunnel, trying to see under that shitty lighting, until we finally reached the end. And there it was, the missing people."

The haunted eyes on Sergei's expression were terrifying.

"I don't think I'll ever forget that. They were alive, working with pickaxes and shovels and the drills, but… At the same time they were not." He looked at Natasha, as if he couldn't comprehend what he'd seen. "They were thin, you could see their bones, and their skin was pitch black, as if they hadn't showered in months. And not only the men were there, but the women and the children too, working nonstop, never saying anything, never resting. I was so shocked that I watched it for what it must've been about ten minutes and no one there acknowledged my existence."

Clark's horrified expression mirrored Sergei's; Natasha was impassive, but Clark could tell she was just as affected.

"I-I had enough after a while and I shouted at them, but they didn't even react. They just kept working. So I grabbed the closest man and tossed him down – you can't imagine how little he weighted –, but the man just got up as if nothing happened and continued to work. That's when a voice startled the fuck out of me. I remember the words to this day. 'Focused, are they not?', the voice said. We pointed our guns to the voice's direction and there she was: Madame Gao."

Sergei was sweating now, breathing fast.

"That Chinese bitch was smiling at me, like nothing wrong was happening. And then she said: 'You will be properly compensated for this, as agreed. Now it is time for you to go.'." Sergei laughed nervously. "I lost my shit. I pointed my pistol at her, but when I fired one of the workers jumped in front of the gun." He turned to Natasha again, shocked. "I hit his shoulder, but the man didn't even flinch. He just kept coming at me even when I shot him again. It's like, hell, like he didn't have blood at all if that makes any sense, but when I hit his head, he stayed down. And then the rest of the people in the room attacked us."

This time, Sergei drank for half a minute and Clark almost took the bottle from him, worried.

"Have you ever watched one of those zombie movies? Where the main guys are pursued by a horde of cannibal monsters? Well, that's pretty much what happened to us. I don't know how we got to the elevator, but when we finally got out of that damn hole, there was a wave of those fuckers waiting for us outside." His eyes were wide as he recalled this. "We ran out of bullets in seconds and then we just took off, running towards the boat. One of my guys tripped and was swallowed by the horde, but me and the other guy just kept running until we finally got to the docks."

Clark's mind was filled with as much questions as it was filled with horror. What happened there? How was that possible? Some kind of drug? A disease? Magic? What Sergei described was the plot of a horror movie, but he could see in his face that the old mobster wasn't lying. He was terrified.

"I honestly thought I was going to die there," Sergei admitted, his eyes unfocused. "But when we got into the boat, they just stopped and went back. Then I left."

There was a long silence as everyone in the room tried to process what they'd just heard.

"What about the people?" Clark asked, suddenly. "You just abandoned them there?"

Sergei didn't appreciate the accusation.

"No, I didn't," he answered, pissed off. "I went to Moscow, grabbed a small army, lots of guns and went back to the island a week later." He shook his head. "There was no one there anymore."

"No one alive?" Natasha asked.

"No one, dead or alive" he clarified. "No people, no bodies, no tracks in the snow, not even a drop of blood." Sergei breathed deeply. "Just a ghost town." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I told my men to blow up the elevator and cover that hole. Then I left and never came back. If God's willing, I never will."

How could the people of an entire city just vanish? What happened there?

"The money was in my account, just like Gao said," Sergei continued. "Every cent. I tried to use it to track her down, but I got nowhere. It was years later that I even learned who those people were. The Hand. And that what happened there wasn't the first fucked up thing they did."

"What were they after?" Clark asked, still unable to comprehend why would someone do such a thing. "Why did they do that?"

Sergei shrugged. "I've no idea. They did some stuff like that in other places, decades before, all over the world. Cities burned down, people killed, some weird rituals… Shit, crazy stuff."

"Are they cultists? Zealots?" Clark questioned, trying to make sense of this.

"Perhaps," Natasha muttered, pensive. "While they dabble in pretty much every criminal enterprise out there, from drugs and guns to people trafficking, it seems to me that money is a means to an end, instead of an actual goal. They have ties to every big criminal organization in the world. The Russian Mafia, the Triad, the Yakuza, the Cosa Nostra… But they're also just pawns in the Hand's game. Whatever their objective is, I cannot tell." She was in silent for a few seconds. "No one I know can. Not many even know what the Hand is and from those who do, few actually believe they're even real. Had I not truly looked into it, I would be one of those people."

"An entire city vanished," Clark said, raising his eyebrows. "And you said it's not the first time that happened. How do people not notice this?"

"Ghost towns weren't an uncommon sight after the end of the Soviet Union," Natasha explained. "Many small towns, villages and settlements were created by the government to aid the war effort, most of them with a single purpose. Some were created to make weapons and ammunition, others to generate energy, some were mining settlements, factories to build vehicles… After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union with it, they had no more purpose. And without a sustainable economy, people had to abandon them to live elsewhere." She shrugged. "Despite the stories and urban legends, most people assumed that's what happened to Pyramiden."

"No one wants to believe a secret organization is responsible for killing every single person in a city," Sergei added, somber. "Not in Russia, not anywhere. There's always a 'perfectly reasonable explanation', even if it's bullshit. And the higher ups who do find out? Well, they know better than to look too closely. Better to deny everything and move on."

It truly seemed too outlandish to be true, Clark thought; and that was coming from an alien, more than used by now to deal with weird situations. He imagined that to the average person, something like that would seem like a conspiracy theory at best; completely madness at worst.

But it was real. And they were in New York right now.

He looked to Sergei. "Tell me how they got in New York."

Sergei stared to the table for an entire minute, his face twisted in a grimace.

"I wanted nothing to do with them," he finally said. "Not after what happened. Not after I knew with whom I was dealing with." Sergei chuckled mirthlessly. "I wasn't in Russia anymore by that time, I was already here, managing our operations in New York. So, of course, a few years after Pyramiden became a ghost town, they showed up. Gao and a Japanese man called Nobu."

"You met them, face to face?" Natasha asked.

"Yes. Well, more like 'face to blade'. Guess which one I was," he answered, raising a single eyebrow. "They got into my apartment and made me an offer. They wanted to expand, to establish a foothold in the US, starting with New York. And since we were already established here, they wanted a hand, pun not intended." His eyes became fiery with anger. "I refused," Sergei said. "I told them to fucking shoot me already, because I wouldn't have anything to do with them."

That surprised Clark. A criminal he might be, but it seemed he had standards. Natasha, however, barely reacted, as if expecting this answer.

"They didn't kill me, obviously," Sergei continued. "No… What they did was forcibly retire me, clear the charges of those stupid Ranskahov brothers after they escaped from the hellhole in Russia and put them in charge of the New York operations." He laughed, but his eyes were still hard. "I warned those boys, I said they had no fucking idea what they were doing, that they were going to get themselves, and everybody else, killed. Did they listen? No, the 'Princes of Moscow' knew better. And here we are. Getting our asses handed to us by You-Know-Who and a fucking Masked Man, almost unable to make money and still forced to continue onwards, because the fucking Hand has a sword pointed at our backs. Wonder when it's all going to blow up in our faces."

From Sergei's ranting, Clark focused on a single thing: "The Masked Man, what do you know of him?"

The question seemed to surprise the Russian. "I know he's crazy to do what he's doing… But tough as hell. He's fucking the Ranskahov brothers' shipments almost every night." He let out a laugh. "And he beat up Anatoly. Holy shit, that must've been embarrassing. Other than that…" He ended with a shrug.

Sergei shook his head and filled a glass of vodka. While he did that, Clark was trying to piece together the puzzle in his mind, using the new information to shed light in what he already knew. The Masked Man, for good or ill, was working against the Russians, just as Jessica told him. Was he an enemy of the Russian mob or simply a vigilante going against a random target? Hard to know with only that much information, but no one seemed to have more.

The money – the absurd amount of money – that Karen had come across while working for Union Allied now had a likely owner: a joint account, like he imagined, probably consisting of the Russians, the Yakuza, the Chinese… and the Hand.

The takeover that left bodies left and right all over New York? Probably these criminal organizations working together, eliminating the competition. Prohaszka, Rigoletto, other bosses from other factions found dead or not found at all... They were pulling their resources together to take New York whole.

For what purpose, Clark didn't know, but it certainly wasn't anything good.

"Who's working with them?" Clark asked Sergei, trying to determinate if his theory was right.

The old mobster was thinking for a few seconds. "Here in New York? The Yakuza, certainly. The Chinese too. We, obviously, though I'm not in the loop anymore." He frowned for a moment, then added: "And a new guy. Someone called Wilson Fisk."

That's a name that Clark had never heard before.

"Who?"

Sergei shook his head. "I don't know him, but he's dangerous. He's got his fingers in every pie. Cops, judges, politicians… You want to do serious business in New York, you need him." He chuckled. "Never seen people so scared of anyone before, other than the Hand, of course. This new guy is someone to watch out for."

"He's got that many people under his thumb?" Clark asked, unwilling to believe so many supposedly good guys were involved in this.

"Ha! That and many more. And the Hand?" Sergei turned to Natasha. "You'll find that even SHIELD is tainted. You want my advice? Trust no one. That'll get you killed faster than a bullet through your skull." He stared at both of them. "You two are playing a very dangerous game. For my sake, I hope you don't fuck it up."

Neither of them answered, but Natasha glanced at Clark and tilted her head, getting up. He followed her, leaving Sergei alone at the table. Natasha leaned close to him and whispered:

"You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

Clark nodded. "We need to know what is in Pyramiden. You're coming?"

"Of course," she answered.

"I'll tell Kelex to send a pod for you. Don't forget your coat," Clark joked, then he nodded towards Sergei. "What you're going to do with him?"

Without answering, Natasha simply turned back and walked to Sergei. And before the old mobster could blink, she grabbed a syringe from somewhere under her dress and stabbed Sergei's neck with it.

The mobster's eyes got wide as he stared astonished, then his head hit the table with a loud THUMP.

"That should give us a few hours," Natasha casually said to a shell-shocked Clark, as she cuffed Sergei to the table. She walked to him. "Shall we?"

Vladimir stared at his brother's body, lying on top of his table, his blue eyes wide as if he still couldn't believe in what he was seeing. Anatoly was dead. His brother was gone, murdered by someone, decapitated as if they had executed him.

They did not find his head.

"Where?" he asked, his eyes not moving.

"He was dumped in the lot around the corner," his man answered, his voice respectively low.

Not even realizing he was walking, Vladimir approached the table. Around him, everyone looked in silence, his men and Wesley, just as dazed as he was.

"My brother," Vladimir whispered, feeling a soul-crushing sadness inside his chest. He felt the tears running down his face, but he couldn't care less. His brother was dead, what else mattered? He was alone. "We should've returned to Moscow, like you wanted."

Slowly, Vladimir touched his chest, leaning over him in pain; that's when his hands felt something. Puzzled, he lifted his brother's jacket and pulled what he felt.

A black mask.

"The Man in the Mask," Wesley exclaimed.

"He sends us a message!" one of his men said.

Vladimir closed his fist, feeling the sadness inside him being replaced by rage. Had the Masked Man killed his brother? Murdered him? Took his head off?! He must've been ambushed after he spoke to Fisk, alone, in the darkness of night.

He would pay.

"Put every man we have on the streets," Vladimir said, eyes never leaving his brother. "Find him."

"All of them?" one of the men asked.

"EVERYONE!" Vladimir yelled. "And bring me his head!"

An eye for an eye, a head for a head. The Masked Man would pay for this.

Clad in his Kryptonian skinsuit, Clark watched as his ship's spherical pod landed, it's two wings folding themselves as the powerful thrusters turned off, not before blowing away all the snow around it. Natasha jumped out of it as soon as the pod was opened, walking to him, no longer wearing her blue dress, but a long and thick coat over her usual black suit.

A wise choice, since Pyramiden was every bit as cold as Sergei warned them, completely covered in white snow.

Natasha smiled as she walked to him, half her face hid under her hood.

"I want one of those for my birthday," she joked, gesturing towards the Kryptonian pod. "Our Quinjet seems like a slug compared to it."

"You'd really trust Tony with that?" Clark chuckled. "He does like to test the limits of every vehicle he gets his hands on."

She seemed to reconsider. "Hmm… Well, that is true. Better leave it to Kelex, she's clearly the responsible pilot here."

Stopping by Clark's side, both of them turned to gaze at the small settlement, their faces losing any semblance of the previous mirth. Pyramiden, the ghost city, stood in front of them. As expected from a mining settlement, the place wasn't big. It was a collection of long buildings, positioned around the few streets, giving the place a very orderly look, and around it they could see mountains and the sea.

A hospital, a school, buildings full of apartments… All completely empty, Clark confirmed with a quick glance of his x-ray vision. He already knew that, there wasn't a single sound in the island save the wind and the sea, but to actually see the abandoned school full of children's toys and not a single kid around – after hearing Sergei's tale – made him sick.

And very, very angry.

"No one around," Clark said, seriously. "Not a single soul."

Natasha nodded, somber, and said: "We already knew that, Clark. Let's see if we can find something that can lead us to the ones responsible for this. Which way is it?"

He looked around for a moment. "There's the coal mine… And there is the excavation site."

Clark pointed at the general direction of the place, maybe a mile away from the settlement, and they started to walk towards it. The eerie silence of the place – and the reason for it – bothered him at each step and not for the first time since he heard Sergei's story he tried to make sense of all this. What could be precious enough to justify such atrocity?

In his mind – and in most people's, he knew – absolutely nothing. But if he wanted to understand the Hand, Clark needed to try to think like them.

Until he had more information, however, it was useless to speculate, so he did his best to try and put it out of his mind. Anger would just get in the way right now.

"Is your coat keeping you warm?" Clark asked, suddenly, when a powerful gust of wind actually pushed Natasha back a few inches.

He knew, as soon as the words left his mouth, that he should've kept quiet.

"Why, Clark, how brazen of you to offer to warm me with your body heat!" she mock exclaimed. "What would Ma Kent say?"

"That's not what I…" he sighed. "Forget I asked."

She grinned. "If you must know, I don't actually need this coat at all. Russians are immune to the harsh winter."

Clark, obviously, didn't believe her, but the surprising thing is that Natasha actually didn't seem bothered at all.

"You're wearing the Kryptonian skinsuit, aren't you?" he realized. That would work to keep her warm, better than any clothes on Earth. Krypton was, after all, much colder than this, according to everything he'd read.

But of course, that was also the wrong thing to say to Natasha.

"You're welcome to take a peek," she said, winking.

He sighed. There was just no winning against her.

"What about you, Clark?" Natasha suddenly asked. "Can you actually feel this?"

"Well, yes. Super-senses, remember? Sense of touch too." Clark raised a hand, feeling the wind. "I can feel every variation of the air currents, the nearly microscopic ice crystals, the amount of humidity in the air–"

"Yes, yes, and if you taste the snow you can probably tell the exact breed of saber-tooth tiger that the locals used to craft their boots 10.000 years ago," Natasha interrupted, rolling her eyes. "I didn't forget your trick with the wine, that was last night. What I'm asking is if you can actually feel cold. Do you even know what's that supposed to feel like?"

"There were no saber-tooth tigers here, they roamed some parts of the American continent," Clark couldn't help but to correct, but before he got a taste of Natasha's glare, he added: "As for feeling cold… Not on Earth, no. But I did feel cold before."

"Where?" she asked, interested.

"During the Convergence, when I was fighting Malekith with Thor, we actually crossed a rift and got to Jotunheim, the Realm of the Frost Giants," Clark explained, remembering the brutal fight against the Dark Elf. "It was pretty chilly there."

"The Realm of the Frost Giants was chilly… Who would've known?" Natasha joked.

"I know, right?" Clark quipped back. "But it wasn't on Jotunheim where I learned the true meaning of the word. Like they say, to feel cold in my bones? It was on Niflheim… Or at least I think it was Niflheim, by what I read about in my ship's archives and in the books Thor brought from Asgard."

Clark still remembered vividly the very brief time he spent on Niflheim as he flew through it by accident during the Convergence. Darker than Svartalfheim, colder than Jotunheim and extremely ominous; not a place he wished to visit again, ever.

"Really? That bad?" Natasha asked.

"That bad," Clark confirmed. "According to one of the books Thor lent me, it is actually possible for Frost Giants to freeze to death in Niflheim, so that should give you an idea of how unhospitable that place is." He sighed. "It's no wonder Asgardians consider Niflheim their very own frozen Hell. Well, that and the fact that it's actually a gateway for souls to pass through."

He realized Natasha was no longer by his side a second too late.

"Excuse me?" Clark stopped as well, confused as to why Natasha stayed behind, but soon enough she started walking again. "Gateway for souls?"

"Oh! Yeah… Well, to sum it up, it turns out that the big questions humanity still can't answer, like 'do souls exist?' or 'is there life after death?', were actually already answered a long time ago by advanced civilizations such as the Asgardians and Kryptonians," Clark explained, slowly. "The answer for both of them is 'yes', by the way. When any living being dies, the soul leaves the body through the Astral Dimension and pass through the veil to the other side. In some locations, the veil is actually thin, like on Niflheim and Asgard, so souls naturally converge to those places so they can move on. Krypton even explains all this mathematically, if you can believe it. I'm good with numbers, really good, but even I still can't understand half of that."

Natasha wasn't saying anything, but she hadn't stopped staring at him yet.

"That is not the kind of conversation that you can 'sum it up', Clark," she deadpanned.

That made him stop. "Are you, umm, religious?" Clark asked, uncertain. He hadn't even considered this. Had he said something that went against Natasha's faith? He was already starting to feel guilty when she rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm not," she answered. "And even if I was, if it's proven, then it's proven. Nevertheless, it is still a pretty big deal to know there is life after death. What is it? Heaven and Hell? Valhalla?"

Well, at least he hadn't offended her, he thought, relieved.

"I don't know," Clark answered, shrugging. "They proved there is something, but they don't exactly know what. There are theories backed by scientific experiments, glimpses of powerful sorcerers and seers, and even supposedly 'gods of death' that actually draw power from souls and whatever lies beyond, much like Thor draws power from Storms… But what is it? I don't think anyone knows that for sure. Maybe Heaven and Hell, maybe Valhalla, maybe all of them existing at the same time, just like we have countless planets in this universe and an infinite number of dimensions coexisting alongside us. Who knows?"

They spent long minutes in silence, walking towards the excavation site, the howl of the wind and their steps in the snow the only sounds they could listen. Clark remembered he spent a long while to digest everything he learned about that subject and Natasha probably wasn't different; he felt guilty again. Maybe he really shouldn't have dropped that particular bomb on her, not at that moment.

"You know what, Clark?" Natasha said, ending the silence. "For once, I'd like to have a conversation with you where I didn't end up reevaluating everything I know about the universe. Magic, the multiverse, life after death… Can't we just talk about mundane topics sometimes?"

The smile on her face told Clark she was joking and he felt relieved; she would have a lot to think afterwards, he had no doubt about that, but at least she wasn't angry with him; or experiencing a major existential crisis.

He really should be careful with that topic.

"I'm trying to convince Jessica to teach me how to play guitar," Clark said, suddenly, smiling. "She told me she would soon learn ballet than teach me, but we'll see."

"I can teach her ballet," Natasha offered.

"Yeah, make sure to film her when you make that offer," Clark chuckled, then looked forward, his face getting serious. "But we can talk about that later. We are here."

They stopped in front of the excavation site, still surrounded by the heavy machinery from all those years ago; rusty and covered in snow, now, but still there. The hole was covered, just like Sergei had said, and a great deal of ice had formed on top of it. If Clark didn't have x-ray vision, he wouldn't even know it was there.

There wasn't any sign of people, anywhere. Living or dead.

His eyes glowed red for a moment and without warning he unleashed a blast of heat vision, moving his head to cut a circle around the ice. The heat was so extreme that most of the ice evaporated instantly, a vapor cloud rising as the rest of the ice cracked, falling down inside the hole, opening a round entrance bigger than his apartment.

Clark and Natasha approached, looking down at the incredibly deep and dark hole in the ground.

"Shall we?" Clark asked, extending his hand to Natasha.

She nodded, taking a set of night-vision goggles from under her coat, and grabbed his hand. Clark floated down, carrying Natasha.

The car stopped at the underground meeting spot and Wilson Fisk and James Wesley got out of it. In front of them, Madame Gao, Nobu Yoshioka and Leland Owlsley were waiting for them.

Leland, of course, was the first to say something.

"Why aren't we meeting at the usual place?" Leland asked, clearly impatient. "And what's all this?"

Wilson Fisk ignored him for a moment, meeting the eyes of everyone there.

"An opportunity," he started, his voice deep, "for those willing to seize it."

Nobu and Leland remained impassive, clearly unamused by Fisk's delay to explain. Madame Gao, however, laughed and started to speak in fast Chinese.

"She is happy to see you," Wesley summarized, translating the long speech.

Fisk nodded and approached. He owed much to Madame Gao and he respected her a great deal.

"My apologies for my absence of late," Fisk said. "And for calling you here on little notice."

"Where are the smiley twins?" Leland asked as Fisk stopped by his side. "Sleeping off another failed kidnapping attempt?"

There it was, the moment to disclose the truth.

"The Ranskahovs are no longer part of this organization," Fisk announced.

His announcement was met with curious and suspicious eyes.

"Since when?" Leland asked.

Fisk sighed.

"Since I removed Anatoly's head… With my car door."

Madame Gao let out a stream of words, all in Chinese, as soon as he said that, clashing her cane against the ground. Nobu, eyes glowing with pure danger, took his hands out of his pockets and stared at Fisk. Leland was mostly too stunned to react.

"She's upset they weren't consulted," Wesley translated. Nobu barked something in Japanese, clearly displeased as well. "He isn't happy either," Wesley added.

"Deal me in on that," Leland finally exclaimed. "What the hell happened?!"

That wasn't something Fisk was about to explain. Anatoly wasn't dead because of his failures or because he couldn't hold his end of the bargain; Anatoly was dead because he showed up in the restaurant, scared Vanessa and most likely made sure she would never come back.

Truth of the matter, Fisk had lost his temper and the reason for that could be interpreted as a weakness.

"It was… A personal matter," Fisk finally said.

There was a long silence.

"What?!" Leland exploded, his voice failing in his indignation. "That's… Vladimir isn't exactly a hug-it-out kind of guy!"

"The Masked Vigilante killed his brother," Wesley interrupted, "or at least, that's what Vladimir believes."

Taking the cue, Fisk continued: "It will distract him until preparations can be made." He stared at his associates one more time. "We all knew that we would need to eliminate the Russians one day. They were too unpredictable and we cannot afford that in this new world."

Leland scoffed. "This from a guy taking heads off with a car door."

Madame Gao said something and Wesley was fast to translate.

"She wants to know how her product is going to be moved now."

Fisk met her eyes, respectfully.

"For the moment, keep sending your deliveries to the Russians, as though nothing has changed," he explained. "And when this is all over, I'll assume their responsibility."

"And move their share to your column in the ledger?" Leland asked, accusingly.

Nobu agreed with the accusation, if his deadly stare meant something.

"A rising tide raises all boats, Leland," Fisk said. "Profits will be divided up equally among us. Four shares, instead of five."

And then he waited their response.

Slowly, Madame Gao nodded. Nobu followed after a second.

"Leland?" Fisk asked, since the financier was still in silence.

"What?" Leland exclaimed. "I'm going against the three of you? I like my head where it's at."

"Then we're in agreement," Fisk declared. "Nothing changes, until I'm ready to move on Vladimir."

"And what if he finds out the truth before that happens?" Leland asked, raising his eyebrows.

Fisk stared at him.

"That would be unfortunate for all of us."

Leland just shook his head, clearly unsettled by everything that was happening.

"Masked Vigilantes, flying superpowered aliens, crazy Russians… I'm too old for this," Leland muttered, walking back to his car.

Nobu approached Fisk. "Remember your promise to me," he said, "and those I speak for."

Fisk nodded and watched as Nobu left as well. He turned to Madame Gao, extending his arm to the old lady.

"Madame Gao," Fisk started, "may I walk you to your car?"

She smiled and said something in Chinese, grabbing his arm and as she got up.

"She thinks you want something," Wesley translated.

"I want to put all this behind us," Fisk explained, as they walked slowly to her car, "as quickly as possible. I would appreciate your help in the matter."

The powerful old lady just smiled at him.