WHAT IF...? has taken you to many different worlds, and has allowed you to see many different possibilities, all of which spring from one universe: the Marvel Universe with which many of you are familiar--the Marvel Universe that has presented those possibilities for over thirty-five years. This tale of WHAT IF...? will allow you to explore that universe even further, and learn a possible truth to a missing year, as it asks the question...What if the Avengers never broke up?

It had been four days since she had been attacked by Bullseye, and Natasha Romanoff--the Black Widow--could still feel each blow every time she moved her body. More importantly, she could still feel the shame of realizing that it was Baron Zemo who had sent Bullseye to kill her, and that Zemo was aware of the Avengers' mission to stop him, and was one step ahead of her. She was almost certain that Klaw was to blame for Zemo's knowledge of the Avengers' actions, and her suspicions were further aroused by the fact that the sound-powered villain had not answered her summons on his Avengers ID card.

None of the Avengers had, for that matter, and that concerned her.

Still, she had no real regrets. Why would she? Two of the most loyal and powerful Avengers had saved her life four days ago, and had agreed to serve alongside her in her secret band of Avengers; Black Knight and Quicksilver had joined her clandestine war against the deceptive Thunderbolts, and with their arrival, victory drew closer, she sensed.

Even now, she had located another Avenger in the most predictable of places; she stepped through the old west style doors of one of Manhattan's countless pubs, where she saw a familiar blonde dressed in plain clothes, sitting alone on a barstool.

"Carol, it's good to see you again," Natasha said, condescendingly.

If Carol Danvers--the Avenger known as Binary--was at all surprised at Natasha's presence, the alcohol in her body hid her reaction well. "The feeling is not mutual," she replied, looking up from her drink for only a moment. "How did you find me?"

"It was fairly simple, actually," Natasha said, indicating the long neck beer bottle in Carol's hand.

"Well good," Carol replied, "because I wanted you to find me. I was going to go looking for you, but...."

"But what? You were busy in here? For the passed four days? Unable to respond to my communications?"

Carol's reddened, half-opened eyes slid up and down Natasha's grey-outfitted body threateningly as she gathered her words. "I was...planning."

As Natasha gently took Carol's arm and led her from the barstool and out the door, she said, "I hope you were planning on sobering up. Your current state is not becoming of you."

The two women stood on the sidewalk in the cool night breeze.

"We're going back to the tanker?" Carol slurred.

"That's right."

"And how do you plan to get there? I can't very well fly in my...condition." Carol said, her tone overly harsh.

"Hop on, m'lady!"

Carol turned to see the grinning Black Knight and his pure white, flying steed soaring down toward her and Natasha, and was just as surprised to see Quicksilver step from behind the corner of the building, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Well, gentlemen...this changes the game a bit," she smiled.

That smile was so...mischievous, Natasha noted. What in the world had Carol been "planning"?

Black Knight's winged horse, Strider, bucked and moaned with the natrural rocking of the Avengers' headquarters aboard Jim Rhodes' ocean tanker, located in the Gulf of Mexico. Dane Whitman patted his trusted, magical friend between the eyes and joined Black Widow, Binary, and Quicksilver as they started for the creaky, metal steps that led below the top deck.

"You're sure Rhodes will be aboard?" Quicksilver asked Widow.

"Actually, no," she replied. "He didn't answer my message two days ago. If I knew he was okay, we would have stayed in New York, but now I'm worried that he's been attacked like I was."

"I see," Quicksilver nodded as the four Avengers continued through the moist, cramped corridors of the vessel.

"And in case I didn't say it before, thank you both for saving me," Black Widow said, almost ashamed to admit that she ever needed saving.

"We make a good team, eh, Dane?" Quicksilver smiled.

"Like always, partner!"

Suddenly, Black Widow held her arms cautiously at her side, motioning for silence. "I hear something. Down this hall," she whispered.

"It must be Jim," Binary said.

"Pietro, come with me," Widow said. "Dane, Carol, you two head the other way." Natasha and Pietro turned the corner, their footfalls trailing off down the corridor.

"Shall we?" Black Knight smiled to Binary like the gentleman he was.

"Forget her," Carol frowned, and lead Dane back down the dank, pipe-filled corridor the way they had come.

"What? But Natasha said--"

"--it doesn't matter what she said. I'm not taking orders from her anymore."

"But--"

"--you haven't been here, Dane. You haven't seen how she's run the good name of the Avengers into the ground! The 'secret Avengers'? What's the point? I agree that we should be going after Zemo and the Thunderbolts, but we should be doing other things, too."

"Perhaps," Black Knight agreed as Carol continued to lead him down the dark corridor.

"I aim to take control of this team," Carol proclaimed. "I don't want to have to fight Natasha for it, but if it comes down to it--" she heard a hiss of energy behind her, and turned around to see Black Knight's metal sword of light glowing with blue energy from its base. "Dane, what are you doing?"

"Oh...uh...a rat," he held the sword toward her, displaying the half-charred remains of a dead rodent.

"Oh, yeah, rats," Carol sighed, "they're everywhere."

"It's about time," Jim Rhodes greeted, half-smiling as he lay on a bed half his size, facing Black Widow. "At least you brought back a souvenir," Jim motioned toward Quicksilver.

"Why haven't you answered my call?" Natasha asked, approaching Jim, who sat up in the bed.

"I haven't been able to send or receive any communication since I shut the tanker's power down--"

"--you what?"

"I'll explain later.* Anyway, I guess it somehow affected my ID card, too. But it's a good thing help arrived when it did."

(*see last issue--Sam)

"Help?" Quicksilver asked, stepping out of the doorway. "Who?"

"Me."

Natasha and Pietro turned to the back of the room to see the crimson-cloaked form of Doctor Stephen Strange stepping through the wall as if it were mere air in the room.

"Strange?!" Pietro gasped.

"It is good to see you both, Natasha, Pietro." Strange patted both Avengers gently on the arm, smiling serenely. "I should have detected you beforehand, but I was busy making sure the ship's power was returning steadily. I'll send an astral projection to alert Carol and Dane of our location."

It never ceased to amaze Natahsa, the things Strange was capable of. Brilliant surgeon turned master of the mystical arts and protector of their dimension: it was no wonder he had never joined the Avengers--he had far too much else to worry about.

"How did you know that Jim was hurt? And how did you know to come here?" Natasha asked, a bit worried that the Avengers' existence had been detected, even if it was only Doctor Strange that knew about the team.

"I make it a point to keep myself attuned to everything that happens in this dimension, as much as I can. But don't worry, Natasha, your secret is safe with me."

If only she could trust him, but it was so hard to trust anyone.

Binary and Black Knight stomped into the room hurriedly. "Oh, so it wasn't a trick!" Black Knight said. "You really are here, Doctor Strange."

"I am," Strange smiled, amused at the distrust that his magical abilities instilled in others. "I've come with a warning, Avengers. There has been a terrible laceratation in the flesh of our dimension. Someone has broken a barrier between here and the Negative Zone, and I cannot help but think that it will happen again."

"People have crossed over into the Negative Zone a lot, Doc. What's the big deal?" Binary asked.

"Normally, there would be no need for concern. But all of the late Fantastic Four's equipment has mysteriously disappeared,* including Reed Richards' gateway into the Negative Zone. This means that someone else--someone perhaps not as versed in the complex ways of interdimensional travel as Richards--is meddling with the interwoven fabric of our dimension. Such activity is a danger to us all. Who knows what malicious beings could enter our world from the Negative Zone."

(*see the TALES OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE one-shot--Sam)

"Perhaps some already have," Quicksilver smiled, his light tone deemed completely inappropriate by all in the room--especially by Black Knight, who poked him in the ribs with his elbow.

"Do you know who is doing this?" Black Knight asked, shrugging off Quicksilver's awkward comment.

"I have my suspicions," the Sorceror Supreme nodded. "Do you know of the mutant the government has reputed to be a terrorist? The mutant called 'Cable'?"

"No!" Natasha barked. "We have no business apprehending terrorists--not until Zemo is stopped. Only then can we go about normal Avengers affairs."

She paced the floor of the ship's meeting chamber, her footsteps echoing against the rusty, metal floor, as Black Knight, Quicksilver, Binary, and Jim Rhodes stood still in contrast. Doctor Strange had left for his Sanctum Sanctorum minutes earlier.

"Do you see what I mean, Dane?" Binary spit. "She's gone over the edge."

What had that meant? Natasha wondered. Had Binary begun conspiring against her? Was that the plan she earlier spoke of? Before she could ask aloud, Black Knight spoke up.

"I'm afraid Carol may be right, Natasha. If the world is in peril--as it is--it's the Avengers' job to make things right. It's always been that way."

"Agreed," Quicksilver nodded, patting Black Knight's armored back. "We cannot stand by while the dimension is torn to shreds by some mutie terrorist." All eyes turned to Quicksilver--Widow's and Binary's in confusion (as Quicksilver was a mutant himself), Black Knight's in annoyance. "What?" Quicksilver whispered to Black Knight. "What did I say?"

"Anyway," Black Knight started, poking Quicksilver in the side once again, "can we compromise, Natasha? After all, what if someone--or someTHING--traverses another dimension into ours, and poses more of a threat than Zemo and the Thunderbolts? Surely you cannot stand by and watch that happen...can you?"

Natasha pounded her fists into the metal desk in the center of the chamber and fumed silently. Finally, "Okay, we stop Cable, just this once. I suppose I owe that to you, Dane, for saving my life."

"Sure," Binary huffed as she started out of the room for the Avengers' hangar, "that's a good reason to save the world...a freaking debt!"

"Come on, pal," Black Knight led Quicksilver out of the room amicably, "you can help me feed Strider before we head to New York." The two exited the room.

Jim snickered. "You noticed how friendly those two are these days, Natasha? They never used to be like that, at least when I saw them. I've been expecting at least a shouting match between the two for the passed hour!"

Natasha did not answer--had she even heard him? Without a nod of acknowledgment, she stepped briskly out of the room, proclaiming under her breath like a discontented child, "There's no point to this...."

The man was known as many things: "Nathan Summers", "Askani'son", "the Chosen One", but these days, it was mostly "Cable".

This night, the white-haired mutant had tried hundreds of times to recreate the precise environment that he felt had attributed to his accidental journey to another dimension, and his encounter with the once-thought-deceased-Captain America.* He could remember the situation perfectly: he was meditating in the center of the hidden safehouse--where he often stayed when he was not at the Westchester home of the X-Men--and he could hear the monotone moan of the dozens of monitors and other electronic devices scattered throughout the safehouse, and he could smell the sterile scent of the room, and he could feel the weightlessness of the air around him as he hovered in meditation three feet from the cement floor.

(see CAPTAIN AMERICA vol. 2, #6--Sam)

But each time he had attempted to take the journey since that first unintentional trip, he failed. Now, he was employing the use of one of the time-travel devices that he had acquired in his many missions in this time period. With it, he hoped to cross into the dimension that Captain America now seemed to inhabit, using its advanced technology and his own memories of the battle alongside the star-spangled Avenger to get him there.

He placed two adhesive nodes to his brow in order to familiarize the time-travel device with his vivid recollections. He began punching commands into the controls of the time machine, when he heard a voice from the second floor of the safehouse.

"Give it up, Cable. The Avengers are here to stop you!"

"Huh?" He turned to see the X-Men's infamous ally, Binary, soaring toward him, shooting bolts of white hole energy that hardly stung him.

"Binary! No! That wasn't the plan!" Black Widow called down as Cable shot at Binary with a non-lethal stream of energy from his pistol, hitting her, but hardly affecting her, as if her body were numb!

"This wasn't YOUR plan, you mean!" Binary grunted as she swung fist after fist at Cable, but was defied by his cybernetic left arm. "You would rather...talk him out of using the machine...in order to ensure our safety...so that we can still fight...for your little mission!"

"Look!" Cable said, shoving Binary to the ground, obviously using care as to not injure her--they claimed to be the Avengers, after all, and deserved some mediation. "I don't know what you're talking about, or why you're here, but maybe we should discuss this before somebody gets hurt."

"Not on my list of things to do today, tall, dark, and sluggish!" Binary kicked a leg into the air, striking Cable in the chin. "Seeing you with all this equipment, it's become clear that Strange was right, and that you're the one risking the safety of our dimension by playing Captain Jerk of the Starship Destroytheplanet!"

Cable rubbed his chin to aleviate the pain, and furrowed his brow. "That's what this is about? You've got it all wrong, then!"

"Is that so?" Binary asked sarcastically, clenching her fist for another lunge.

"I'm trying to retrieve somebody!"

Binary pulled her arm back. "Heh. If it ain't Captain America, I ain't listening!"

"But it IS! It IS Captain America!"

"What?!" Black Widow, Black Knight, and Quicksilver gasped in unison.

"How?" Black Widow continued.

"Are you really that gullible, 'Tash?" Binary asked as she slammed her fist into Cable's cheek, sending him staggering back. "I gave you more credit than that! He's giving you excuses in order to save his hide!"

Without response, Black Widow leaped down to the first floor and pulled Binary from her reach of Cable.

"Let go of me, Natasha! Now!" Binary threw her arms back, tossing Black Widow to the ground.

As Widow rose to her feet, she stared into Binary's dark eyes as the white-hole powered Avenger's skin and suit began to glow with energy; they were the same eyes that the Widow currently wore.

"This team's MINE now," Binary warned as she lit a bolt of light in her hand and slung it at Black Widow, who dove out of its path just in time.

"Dane, Pietro, stop her!" Widow cried.

She assumed their verbal response was drowned out by the random hisses of energy bursts that formed in Binary's assault on Cable--until she saw that both Black Knight and Quicksilver had hardly moved. In fact, when she listened harder, she found that they were conversing with each other in a language that she could not understand.

"Dane, Piet--!"

"Hush, human!" Dane replied in a gruff voice not his own. "We have been presented an opportunity which is most beneficial to us--" As he spoke, both he and Quicksilver began to change form. Black Knight's body shifted into that of a taller, leaner man with pronounced, angled facial features and dark, sinister eyes that matched his short, v-shaped black hair, while Quicksilver grew much taller and wider, his hair remaining ever-colorless, but growing longer, his face and body turning pale blue and forming into a muscular, ogre-like form that hardly resembled anything human. "--and not at all beneficial to you, Avengers."

Seeing Black Knight and Quicksilver disappear, replaced by their true forms, Natasha realized that it had happened again. From miraculously good to impossibly bad, just like the Thunderbolt's arrival after the heroes' deaths. Another deception. She had run out of people to trust, run out of things to believe in--her agenda was all she had left. And the only value she could possibly place in distrust was the knowledge that when everyone and everything was bad, she always knew who her enemies were. She could never trust in anything again, never feel for anyone.

With the snap of his fingers, the being that once appeared to be Black Knight commanded the brutish alien that was once Quicksilver to attack Black Widow--and attack he did, as he leapt down to the second floor over her prone body, grabbing her by the neck and slinging her across the safehouse.

"I don't know where Quicksilver went, and what you are, ugly," Binary said, shooting an admittedly-weak bolt of white-hole energy at the monster, attracting its attention, "but if anyone takes the taskmistress down, it's me!"

The blue-skinned goliath growled and charged for her. She had not expected it to move so swiftly, and shot streams of energy at it in desperation as it closed in on her. At that moment, Binary almost admitted that she had bitten off more than she could chew--almost.

Three shots of red plasma energy sent the charging behemoth to the ground, and Binary looked to Cable in acknowlegment as he aimed his still-smoking, hundred-pound, glistening rifle toward the man that had somehow posed as Black Knight.

"What's your game, imposter?" Cable called up to the purple-clad man standing on the second floor of the safehouse.

"Quite simply, my colleague and I wish to conquer the earth, and we realize that the Avengers are the only beings that stand in our way. In our ages old quest for a planet ripe for the taking, we found this world over one century ago. Since then, we have tried numerous times to impersonate you creatures until the time was right to bring the humans of earth to their knees, but we have been thwarted time and again by various entities. At last I realized that, in order for the two of us to break the planet, we must first break its greatest champions--those just happen to be the Avengers. Since the Black Widow was the last leader of the Avengers, we targeted her first, posing as the Black Knight and Quicksilver, her trusted teammates. Unfortunately, my dim-witted accomplice nearly gave away our sharade several times over the passed four days, but I believe your Black Widow was too focussed on her goal to notice the discrepincies in the 'Black Knight''s and 'Quicksilver''s personalities."

"Nice speech," Cable said. "You got a name?"

"My name is Gorrin, and my dozing partner is called Gruff. And on both our behalves, I would like to thank you, Cable."

"Yeah?" the mutant replied, squinting as he focussed the rifle's crosshairs on the man called Gorrin. "What for?"

"You have lead us to the discovery that there are more Avengers to be dealt with, in the dimension that you claim to have visited. Once we dispense of the champions of this dimension, you will take us to that one."

"Well, you've just about won," Binary smirked. "Our fearless leader is unconscious on the ground over there--not that I'm complaining. Who can say where Limbo and Quasar ran off to. Hercules is living it up with the Heroes for Hire. And I can only hope that Klaw was eaten by Galactus or something." She turned her head to see the blue monster named Gruff rise to his feet and shake off his unconsciousness, and she charged her fist with her ever-fading energy, preparing for an attack. "Yes, you've just about won--except for me, that is. I'm the last Avenger, and I'll do whatever it takes to stop you."

"So be it," Gorrin smiled as he once again commanded Gruff to attack.

"Die, now," Gruff grinned, his yellow teeth oozing with thick phlegm.

The monster's prepared assault was interrupted when the safehouse began to shake around them. Cable trained his rifle on Gruff as he backstepped toward his monitors, checking their readouts. "We've got another intruder."

"Not an intruder, Cable," Binary said, her tone quite jovial. "An Avenger!"

Cable was quite surprised to see Hercules tear down the steel-lined walls of the safehouse with one swing of his mighty fists, and charge through the rubble as if it was a mound of grass.

"Huh?" Gruff grunted just before his chin absorbed Hercules' fist.

Black Widow awoke, rubbed her pounding head, squinted her eyes, and shook her head in disbelief. "Herc?" she asked herself.

"Aye, fair Natasha!" Hercules replied through his snorts of exertion as he turned Gruff's face into a red and purple pulp. "Your cherished eyes...do not deceive you! I left Iron Fist's band of warriors...and contacted the tanker. James informed me that...you were here...so I came...to you. He said...you would probably need me."

"He was right," Black Widow whispered to herself.

"This will not do!" Gorrin muttered as he ran down the steps to the first level of the safehouse, attacked by Cable's rifle all the way. "This will not do!"

"What are you trying to do?" Cable asked as he took careful shots at Gorrin, as to not damage his equipment and engage the dimensional portal he had configured.

"I'm finishing the role the Onslaught enacted!" Cable was impressed to see that Gorrin was able to operate the controls of the temporal device, but did not let that admiration distract from his aim, as he sent a shot of fiery energy into the alien's heart.

"You're...too...late...." Gorrin gurgled as he fell to the ground.

With that, streams of white energy shot out of the portal positioned in the center of the safehouse. The energy rammed through the perimeter like wrecking balls, its glow nearly blinding all in the room. And the streams kept forming.

"What's happening, Cable?" Black Widow asked.

"He engaged the portal!"

"Where will the brightened gateway lead us?" Hercules inquired.

"If I can concentrate, it won't take us anywhere. If I can concen--"

Cable was cut off by a rush of the portal's energy, and knocked unconscious to the cement ground.

"I can't see!" Binary said.

"Look what you've caused, Carol!" Black Widow shouted, no longer able to see anything but white. "If you had just listened to me!"

"It matters not, Natasha!" Hercules' voice soothed surprisingly amidst the deceptively bright chaos around them. "Be our long-fallen comrades in another dimension or in another realm of being, it appears there is some probability that we may reunite with them either way!"

Hercules would have been proud to see the smile that formed on Black Widow's face at his insightful comment, had he been able to view it through the blinding light of the portal's released energy; he would have been glad to see that the warmer, kinder Natasha he adored had returned, if only for the briefest instant before she--along with everyone else in the safehouse--was swallowed up in the dimensional portal's brilliant rage.

NEXT ISSUE: "Awesome Adventure" Part Two! A trip into the "Franklinverse!" It had to happen!

TO BE CONTINUED!