In the days before Christmas, the two of them left Washington and appeared at Heather's old farm in Texas—now repurposed as Weyland's technology and medical research center.
The purpose of the visit: Natasha's biogenetic enhancement injection.
The human body has limits. Sometimes those limits need to be pushed. Steve Rogers without the super-soldier serum would have been nobody.
The enhancement formula had been built entirely from Natasha's own genetic foundation. More than five separate research teams had spent months adding, calibrating, and cultivating—combining elements from several viral strains into an entirely new configuration. Less than 5 milliliters of the final compound had taken over half a year to produce.
To ensure the virus integrated as cleanly as possible—and to handle any unexpected complications—Bella had also constructed a life-support unit modeled after the one used by the elderly Yashida patriarch. The room was now packed with medical equipment, every monitoring system running.
"Natasha." Bella hesitated at the last moment. "I've run the numbers. The failure rate is only 1%. You can still take more time to think it over if you want to—" She stopped. She hadn't been worried before, but looking at it now, 1% suddenly felt uncomfortably large.
Natasha had been quiet the entire way here. She knew the Weyland name—the public didn't, but intelligence agencies and government insiders across multiple countries did. She simply didn't know the nature of Bella's connection to it. She'd been smart enough to act like she hadn't noticed, and smart enough not to ask questions. They were both professionals. Some space was necessary. Not everything needed to be shared.
She pulled off her outer layer in one fluid motion and settled into the life-support unit.
"I know you care about me. But trust me—there is no accident coming. With my willpower, even a 50% success rate becomes 100%. This is already 99%. What exactly are you worrying about?"
If Bella hadn't known her so well, she might have suspected Natasha had psionic powers—the confidence radiating off her was something else. She's got at least seven-tenths of my flair, this one.
Bella realized she'd been underestimating Natasha's resolve. Her sister—this unofficial little sister of hers—wanted strength more desperately than anyone, and trusted herself more completely than anyone.
Confidence might sound like an abstract quality. But its importance was never something to dismiss.
"Alright. Get ready. In about sixty seconds, the compound will enter your bloodstream. At that point, try not to get emotionally worked up in either direction—no spikes, no crashes. The compound is a form of life. Its genetic chain has been locked down to keep its activity at a minimum—it won't move toward you on its own. You have to reach toward it..."
Bella walked her through the key points. Natasha listened carefully. At the end, she gave a single firm nod. "Start it. I'm ready."
The deep blue solution entered through the vein, traveled through the heart, and in an instant flooded the space it had been designed for. The compound carried Natasha's own genetic markers throughout—and those markers now acted as guides, leading the viral structure deep into her genome.
The enhancement began.
In under ten seconds, Natasha's skin flushed crimson. Her eyes flooded red. Her lips, normally full and smooth, cracked dry within moments. The veins along her neck stood out in sharp relief. She gripped the armrests of the life-support unit with white-knuckled force—one finger on her right hand snapped from the pressure, and she didn't notice at all.
The life-support system ran automatically, working to pull her vital readings back toward normal. The locked tension in Natasha's brow gradually began to ease—and then, without warning, her entire midsection convulsed. Her spine arched like a bowstring, as though some enormous force inside her was trying to break free through the surface. Five seconds later, she curled inward instead, bones grinding audibly throughout her whole frame.
The life-support unit locked on two additional restraint bands around her waist. She was now firmly secured to the seat.
Bella felt her chest tighten. She wanted to go in there.
She ran two consecutive divination spells from outside. Both returned a clear signal. And still, she couldn't shake the feeling. She paced in small circles outside the door—a first-time father waiting outside a delivery room.
She would never use her telepathy on Natasha. Not with good intentions, not with bad ones. Either way, it was off-limits. Their inner worlds belonged to themselves alone. Neither of them was an extension of the other—that was the line they both held, and she wasn't going to cross it. So here she was, outside, completely helpless. All her magic was useless in this particular moment.
Fortunately, what magic couldn't do, science could.
The compound had been cultivated from Natasha's own genetic structure. This was, in essence, a drop of water returning to the sea. After the initial friction phase, the compound and her genome began merging at a rapid and accelerating rate.
Natasha's eyes flew open.
There was no focus in them. She was somewhere far away—too far away to register Bella, or even her own sense of self.
But her willpower held. The residual plant-consciousness from the Ladder of the Sun—layered deep within the compound's structure—crashed against her mind and was suppressed. Her eyes came back slowly. Awareness returned.
She looked down at the restraints on her wrists and ankles.
"Hey." Natasha's voice was steady, addressing the empty room. "Take these off? Or is that... part of the plan?"
Even with a heart as sturdy as hers, this was not the moment for games. Bella shut down the life-support system. The restraints released one by one.
Natasha pressed her palm against the armrest and carefully reset the broken finger. She still felt slightly off—but she stood perfectly straight.
She looked around the room. The world appeared the same as it always had. And yet, subtly different.
The difference was hard to articulate.
Vision. Hearing. Smell. Every sense had shifted—lifted a degree above where it used to sit. And that shift, however small, had given her a new relationship with the world outside herself.
I'm not the same anymore. She drew a slow breath, the corner of her mouth lifting.
That quiet moment lasted all of four seconds before Bella demolished it.
Bella lit up like she'd just made a discovery. She walked over with the warm, beaming expression of a proud parent, held a hand just above Natasha's head, and compared it to her own height.
"Wait. Natasha. Did you just... get taller?!"
I am going to destroy you. Natasha's hands balled into fists. This woman. She is MOCKING me. She has to be mocking me.
Bella bounced on her heels, absolutely insufferable. She measured both their heights again with exaggerated ceremony. "Yep. Yep, definitely taller. But still not as tall as me!"
Natasha threw a punch.
The force behind it startled even her. Female physiology had always been her limiting factor—she'd spent her whole career compensating for it with technique. She'd never had raw power. Now she did. She could feel it filling her—brimming, coiled, ready. This single punch could go through steel plate.
It cut through the air with an audible sound, lightning-fast, without a single flourish: a straight shot to Bella's stomach.