Chapter 117: The Widow Cannot Meditate
That evening, Natasha arrived in the Sanctum training room expecting to be hit.
Thor remained in New Mexico under S.H.I.E.L.D. observation, safely out of the rain and firmly grounded by Jane Foster's relentless questioning. Maria Hill had the crater under control, giving Ethan enough time to bring Gwen and Natasha home.
Down in the Sanctum's training room, Natasha stood on the polished wooden floor. She wore a fitted black tank top and tactical pants, her bandaged hands wrapped in athletic tape. She rolled her shoulders, shifting her weight lightly on the balls of her feet, preparing for a fight.
Ethan walked into the center of the room and dropped a round, woven meditation cushion onto the floorboards.
"Sit," Ethan said.
Natasha looked at the cushion, then up at him. "You dragged me across the country to teach me yoga?"
"Yoga would be easier," Ethan replied.
Natasha stared at him for a second, sighed, and lowered herself onto the cushion. She crossed her legs, resting her wrists on her knees.
"You treat dimensional energy like ammunition," Ethan told her, stepping behind her. "You try to rip it out of the air through sheer willpower. It worked in the warehouse because you were desperate, but you forced more power through your body than your hands could hold. That's why your skin burned."
"That is what weapons are for," Natasha said smoothly. "You pull the trigger, and they fire."
"This isn't a gun," Ethan corrected. "And you aren't wrestling it away from an enemy. You have to stop grabbing it."
"Breathe in," Ethan instructed. "Feel the magic around you. Take one spark. Hold it. Then let it go."
Natasha closed her eyes. She slowed her breathing, her chest rising and falling in a steady, measured rhythm. For a moment, the room was perfectly still.
Years of training told her that anything dangerous had to be controlled before it could control her.
She felt the magic filling the room and seized far more than Ethan had told her to take.
Orange-red energy flared across her knuckles. Sparks snapped against her bandages as she tried to force the magic into place.
Ethan dropped to one knee and caught her wrist. Golden light covered her hand, drawing the excess magic away before it burned through the bandages. The orange sparks sputtered and died.
"Too much," Ethan said quietly, keeping his grip on her wrist. He adjusted the angle of her arm slightly, then placed his other hand flat between her shoulder blades, correcting her rigid posture. "You're bracing for an impact. Relax your shoulders."
A few feet away, Gwen sat sideways on a leather couch, cleaning the intricate firing mechanism of her web-shooters.
She snapped a fluid cartridge into place with a sharp metallic click.
"You seem to be using a lot of hands for a breathing lesson," Gwen observed.
"Her technique is terrible," Ethan replied, not moving his hands.
Natasha kept her eyes closed, her breathing steadying again. "His teaching method is suspicious."
"That part I believe," Gwen agreed.
Gwen was still watching closely, but there was no real venom in her voice this time.
"Try again," Ethan said, stepping back. "Don't fight it. Just guide it."
Natasha focused. She didn't reach for the heavy, suffocating weight of the dimension this time. She reached for a single, quiet spark.
A thin line of orange-red light appeared between her index finger and thumb.
It trembled slightly, but it held. No wild sparks. No burning skin. For the first time, the thread was answering her instead of fighting her.
She held it for one second. Then two.
"Better," Ethan said.
The corners of Natasha's mouth twitched upward, though her eyes remained closed. "Enthusiastic, by your standards."
On the couch, Gwen casually swung her legs off the cushions. She walked over, stopping right beside Ethan, and deliberately leaned her shoulder against his arm, tilting her head to watch the glowing thread.
Natasha's focus instantly fractured.
The orange wire sparked, hissed, and collapsed into empty air.
Natasha opened her eyes and looked directly at Gwen.
Gwen offered her an incredibly innocent smile.
Natasha let out a slow, measured breath, settling her hands back onto her knees. "Again."
Ethan let out a quiet laugh, perfectly willing to let the competition run its course, but a short vibration in his jacket pocket stopped him.
He pulled out his encrypted phone. It was a message from Maria Hill.
Thor asked to return to the crater. Foster talked him down.
Ethan locked the screen. Thor had listened to Jane instead of charging back toward the crater. That was something.
As Ethan slipped the phone back into his pocket, the air inside the training room suddenly went heavy.
High above them, one of the primary defensive wards woven into the Sanctum's skylight flickered.
The light was a sharp, sickly green.
Ethan recognized the touch of a distant projection brushing against the Sanctum's outer ward. The house began to close around it, but the intruder withdrew before the trap could snap shut.
Deep inside Ethan's dimensional inventory, sealed in the dark, the Hōgyoku gave one faint, isolated pulse.
Ethan felt the pulse through the closed inventory. He couldn't tell whether the Hōgyoku had reacted to the Asgardian magic or to whoever stood behind it.
Gwen noticed Ethan go perfectly still. She dropped her playful smile, her hand dropping to the web-shooter on her wrist. "What is it?"
Natasha rose from the cushion and scanned the room, one taped hand already reaching toward her pistol.
Ethan looked up toward the skylight, the fading residue of the green magic still hanging in his senses.
"Someone from Asgard," Ethan said, his voice quiet in the large room, "just knocked without using the door."
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