The Avengers were hired by the Metropolitan Museum in New York City to provide security for a display of rare works of art from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. The director gave Luke Cage a list of six members of the official delegation accompanying the artwork. For the most part they were former KGB who went on to have diplomatic careers or went into the huge Russian natural gas and oil industries. Except for two, Vladimir Yezhov and his wife Svetlana Yezhova. Cage asked Amadeus Cho to run checks on everyone. The Yezhov's had no history going back beyond a year. They were supposed to be diplomats but seemed to come out of nowhere about a year ago.
Cage noted that they needed to be especially careful about the Yezhovs, they were the most suspicious looking. Cage, Cap and Ms. Marvel went over to the museum to check it out before the artworks arrived. The display room had no windows and seemed to be quite sturdy. They decided to put two people on the roof, two around the outside of the building. They also needed to cover the building entrances and the display room itself. Since the show was to last seven days they were going to rotate assignments.
The Avengers were very tense and alert on the first night. It was their first chance to see the Yezhovs and size them up. They too seemed to be nervous and were watching the people coming into the room very intently. But nothing happened. On the sixth day, a woman came in to see the display. Quicksilver was assigned to the room that day but didn't pay much attention to the woman becase he was watching the Yezhovs. They saw the woman and started to move. With his great speed Quicksilver saw Yezhov pull something from his pocket and correctly guessed that the woman was the target.
Before anyone else knew what was happening, Quicksilver moved the woman about a foot away from her original position. Then he dashed over and grasped Yezhov's wrist in a tight grip and made him drop a blow dart. Ms. Marvel grabbed Yezhova by the arms to keep her from doing anything. Unfortumately they must have swallowed poison because they dropped dead on the spot.
Jocasta went to the woman who had come into the room and noticed it was Black Widow. Black Widow had arrived back in town the previous evening after being on a mission with Nova to find out more about a secret sorcerer's school. It was a follow-up on the incident where Black Widow and Nova changed sexes. Black Widow being Russian wanted to see the art show. She put a black wig on and dressed uncharacteristically conservative hoping this would help disguise her. As she approached the museum she noticed Avengers on duty. When the entered the room she noticed more Avengers and some old KGB hands looking official. Before she knew it she was jostled by something invisible and an object flew past her face. Later she saw that the object was a small dart and it was sticking in the wall.
By this time Cage was in the room and was taking charge shouting "this is an official crime scene, no one is the leave here yet." He made sure Black Widow was okay. Homicide detectives arrived quickly and began taking statements and collecting evidence. The leader of the Russian delegation began to to object to being detained and the fact that the Yezhov's bodies were being removed by the medical examiner's office for a thorough autopsy and toxicology workup. He was ignored by everyone. Hours later when the details were wrapped up for now the Avengers returned to their HQ with Black Widow. She was part of the family. Cage asked Spiderman to follow the Russians for the evening. Two hours later Spidey reported that the Russians were on a flight to Moscow. They were never heard from again. Back at HQ Ms. Marvel, Jocasta and Spiderwoman hugged Black Widow and told her they were glad she was okay.
Later on Cage met briefly with Black Widow and told her that he too was glad she made it and that she could report on her mission the next day. Black Widow wanted to get drunk but the other girls convinced her that they should just talk about their feelings. Cage could hear what was going on and decided to turn in.
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