Red Room

The high-altitude wind lifted Natasha's red hair, yet she felt no cold.

She gripped Leon's hand tightly and gazed at the lights below, tiny as fish eyes.

"This is amazing—you just took me flying like this!" She reached out to touch the clouds surrounding them, mist slipping through her fingers.

At Stark Mansion, once Leon had confirmed that Natasha was ready, he grabbed her hand and shot into the sky, soaring into the clouds.

That acceleration, breaking the sound barrier in a single second with a sonic boom.

Even with Natasha's composure, she could not help letting out a series of frightened cries.

Over the past twenty-four years, she had undergone the harshest training, flown the fastest aircraft, and posed as the most lavish aristocrats. It could be said that she had seen most of the world's sights.

But experiencing supersonic flight firsthand without any protection was a first for her.

"We're at least a thousand meters above the ground. Why can I still breathe and speak normally, and why hasn't the high-speed wind injured me?" She looked around, finding everything novel.

"Because I released a Biological Force Field." Leon did not explain further.

He looked up at the sky. "We're too low. Once we pick up speed, it'll easily affect the environment. We need to fly higher!"

"How high?" Natasha was startled.

"You'll find out soon enough!" Leon accelerated again with Natasha in tow, shooting into the clouds.

"Whoo!!!" Natasha had already adapted quickly.

As they pierced through the clouds and met the raging wind, she even let out a ringing shout, as though she were riding a roller coaster at an amusement park.

The two of them kept rising until they reached the stratosphere.

By then, moonlight had emerged.

Layer upon layer of smooth clouds lay beneath them.

Moonlight reflected and danced across the cloud tops, adding a pale bluish-white glow to the dark underside of the stratosphere.

Natasha lowered her head and looked down at the clouds beneath the moon.

The boundless pale cloud sea stretched all the way to the horizon, without end or any landmark to guide one's direction.

She suddenly remembered something.

Back when she flew fighter jets in the stratosphere, she could still use satellite positioning to determine her direction and location.

But flying with her own body meant there was no navigation!

"Leon! Do you know where we're going?" Natasha turned and shouted at him.

Leon froze for a moment, then gave her an odd look. "Of course I do. What, are you going to give me directions and tell me where the Red Room is?"

"..." Natasha looked at Leon, fell silent for several seconds, then realized another problem. "If I said I didn't know where the Red Room was, could you find it?"

"You trained there, were controlled there, and received your missions there, yet you don't know where it is?" Leon's gaze became even stranger.

Natasha looked utterly innocent. "The Red Room is an intelligence organization left over from the 1990s. It cannot be known to the world."

"What keeps it running are girls who have been controlled and raised from childhood, one after another."

"To ensure secrecy and safety."

"Every time we returned after completing a mission, we were injected with sedatives."

"So... I really don't know where it is."

"But perhaps someone does."

Natasha sank into her memories. "I once had a foster father. He was the Second-Generation Red Guardian, something like the Soviet Union's own Captain America. He must know something. We can go find him..."

"No need." Leon interrupted Natasha.

"As for reuniting with your foster parents, you should do that yourself after you're free."

"Otherwise, with an outsider like me stuck in the middle, how are you supposed to cry and tell them what's in your heart?"

Finding the Red Room was not difficult for him. Why would he need to ask around for directions?

Besides, Natasha's foster father, Alexei, was nothing more than comic relief in the movie.

Other than providing Natasha and her younger sister Yelena with a sense of family.

That foster father served no other purpose. He knew even less than nothing about the Red Room.

"Then how are you planning to find the Red Room? With your AI butler, the one called... JARVIS?" Natasha asked.

"No. I'll use my eyes and ears." Leon's gaze had already crossed most of the globe and locked onto the Red Room.

After a brief moment of confusion, Natasha's eyes widened. "Super Hearing and Super Vision? You have those abilities too!?"

"When you saw me wearing Superman's uniform, didn't you guess that my abilities might be the same as Superman's?" Leon asked in return.

"Lots of people would guess that, but it's too unbelievable. No one wants to believe it!"

Natasha studied Leon carefully once more.

"So you really are like Superman... Could you be a Kryptonian? Or are you a Superman fan who gained this kind of power through experiments?"

She even began analyzing it. "The previous generation of Stark took part in researching the Super-Soldier Serum. It seems perfectly reasonable for the current Stark to have developed a Superman serum."

"Your definition of reasonable is the difference between the sky and the ground," Leon quipped.

"Then how did you become Superman?" Natasha's eyes were filled with intense curiosity. "Your blood test records showed nothing abnormal."

"You'll have a chance to find out later." Leon smiled mysteriously.

Suddenly, his ears twitched and his gaze sharpened.

"Hold on tight. I can already hear your superior raging in the Red Room because he can't contact you. We need to speed up!"

"Are you planning to send me back before he finishes throwing his tantrum?" Natasha pursed her lips and chuckled. "He'll definitely thank you."

"That would be perfect. I'm already looking forward to his expression."

Leon abruptly accelerated, the immense air pressure tearing through the sky and parting the sea of clouds.

Natasha felt it all in amazement.

Under the cover of the Biological Force Field, wind pressure strong enough to cut steel struck her face, yet became as gentle as a spring breeze.

She felt as though she were wearing a VR headset and experiencing the flight of an intercontinental missile.

Her vision and sense of touch were completely disconnected.

"God, this is incredible!" she marveled again.

Their speed quickly broke fifty Mach, crossing more than a dozen kilometers through the sky every second.

There were only clouds and thin air in the stratosphere, with no landmarks at all.

But Natasha soon noticed that Polaris in the starry sky was steadily moving closer to directly above her.

"Are we heading to the Arctic? Is the Red Room inside the Arctic Circle?" she suddenly asked.

The closer one got to the North Pole, the closer Polaris would be to the point directly overhead.

"More precisely, it's above the... Arctic Ocean! We're almost there!"

Leon began to slow down and dive with Natasha.

They were almost there!

At his words, Natasha watched the clouds rush closer, but instead grew nervous.

For all these years, she had never seen the Red Room in its entirety. The building had always been a mystery in her heart.

It was like a high wall that had cut off her world. It represented death and indifference.

And now she was finally about to see it. With a divine soldier descending from the heavens at her side, Leon was her greatest support.

She knew that before Superman's power, the Red Room had no ability to resist. Today was destined to be the day that put an end to her former life.

Yet the more clearly she understood that, the more nervous she became.

What filled her mind was not the thrill of destroying the Red Room and avenging her hatred.

To her, it was merely a mission, something she had to do. Even if it meant dying for it, she would do so willingly.

And now that mission was about to be completed. It seemed that after this, her life would have no meaning beyond its mounting blood debts.

At that moment, Natasha was like a puppy about to be sent out from a pet shop.

She would no longer be locked in a cage all day, watching travelers come and go with hope in her eyes.

She would gain freedom, but she would also have to face a world she had never seen before.

Afternoon sunlight and summer grass—she could finally experience and touch them all.

But eyes that had long been deprived of light could not look upon daytime, and muddy hands did not dare touch the green grass.