Gifted (25 page)

“You get used to it.” Quick as a cat, she spun and raced down the walkway away from him. A moving target might have posed a challenge
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for a different archer, but Clint had been shooting things on the fly since he was six. Tucking the hypodermic arrow into his waistband, he toggled the joystick on his quiver, selecting four new arrowheads. Within seconds, he had the first arrow nocked and sent it flying, followed by three more in rapid-fire succession. The arrows, made of Adamantium and equipped with powerful magnetic tips, passed through the taut fabric at Red’s wrists and ankles, pinning her against the metal bulkhead so that she was standing in the shape of an “X.”

“Well, you’ve drawn first blood,” said his opponent, indicating a thin scratch on the exposed part of her wrist where the arrow had grazed her as it went through the fabric of her jumpsuit.

“Unintentional. I only had a millimeter or two to play with. You had the first knockout, though.” Clint pulled out the hypodermic-tipped arrow. “Before I go ahead and put you down for the count, mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

“Testing your defenses.”

“If you’re trying to tell me that S.H.I.E.L.D. sent you as some kind of in-house safebreaker, it won’t wash. That’s what they’ve got me for.”

“I know. You’re the one I was testing.”

Clint shook his head. “You knew that out of a room filled with over fifty agents, I would happen to be the one to notice you?”

The woman smiled at him. “Absolutely…Hawkeye.”

Clint grew still. “Who sent you?” Over the years, he had made some pretty powerful enemies, on both sides of the law.

“I sent myself.”

“Not buying it.”

“It’s the truth. Before I go switching sides, I want to make sure I’m not backing a losing team.” She looked up at him, not a hint of coyness
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in her big, green eyes.

“Your accent is slipping a little.”

“I don’t have an accent.”

“Yeah, you do. It’s not so much in the way you pronounce words as it is in the rhythm. I had a Russian guy teach me acrobatics for a while. He moved to the States when he was seven. No accent, but when he got tired, the rhythm of his speech changed.”

“You have a good ear.” She smiled as if she were his teacher and he had just performed well on a test. That was a hell of a smile she had. Most men probably did a lot of stupid things for one of those. And she probably gutted them with a stiletto without changing her expression.

“So what are you, G.R.U.? S.V.R.?”

“I was
spetsnaz
. Emphasis on was.”

“Special ops? You mean black ops?”

She didn’t respond, and for the first time Clint knew she wasn’t just playing him. She was making up her mind. For a fraction of a second, there was a worried crease between her eyebrows, and then she nervously licked her lips. “Can I trust you?”

It was the first wrong move Clint had seen her make. Clint looked down at her, letting her see his wariness, but also giving her a glimpse of how bone-tired he was of these kinds of games. It was a calculated countermove, to show her he could be brought over to her side. “I don’t know. Can I trust you?”

Something flickered in her eyes, then: surprise. “You know what?” she said, dropping all pretense of being ill at ease. “I think perhaps you can.”

With this one, you removed one mask only to find another, thought Clint. “Somehow, I doubt that very much.”

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“You shouldn’t. I’m not the enemy here. Do you see the red ‘X’ on my bracelet? Look what happens when I move my wrist like this.” A small needle emerged, glistening with a drop of moisture. “That’s a nerve agent. If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Clint gave an amused snort of laughter. “You got nerve, Red, I’ll give you that.”

“And I would have thought you would be a little more original,” she replied, twisting her wrist so that the needle went back into the bracelet. “This isn’t even my original hair color.”

“So,” said Clint, pulling the arrows out of the wall to release her arms, “what do I call you before I bring you in to be arrested, court-martialed and sent to prison?”

She held out one small gloved hand. “My given name is Natalia Romanova, but my friends call me Natasha.”

“Take it off.”

“Excuse me?”

“The bracelet. And the glove.”

Raising her eyebrows, Natasha pulled off the bracelet, along with the black neoprene glove. She placed them carefully on the floor. “See? No concealed weapons. And now you.”

Clint pulled off his archer’s gauntlet, and after a moment’s hesitation, he shook the foreign agent’s hand. A shiver of electricity went straight down his back, but Clint disregarded it as a momentary distraction. “So, what’s your next move, Nat? You going to convince me to let you go?”

“I might,” said Natasha with a wry smile. “But somehow, I don’t think your girlfriend would agree.” She gave a nod of her head, indicating Jessica Drew, who was standing just underneath them, her weapon aimed at Natasha’s heart.

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“YOU
move for your gun, and you’re dead,” said Jessica, holding the semiautomatic in a firm, two-handed grip as she aimed up at her target. Without taking her eyes off the other woman, she added, “Clint, you incredible idiot, do you have any idea whose hand you’re holding? I ran a facial-recognition scan on the computer after you left.”

Clint closed his grip on Natasha’s hand, keeping her from pulling away. “Aw, ma, you’re always checking up on me.”

“
Durak
,” said Jessica, followed by a stream of what sounded like fluent Russian.

“I got ‘Durak,’ but not the rest,” said Clint.
Durak
was what his Russian gymnastics coach had called him when he fudged a landing.

“Allow me to translate,” said Natasha, releasing his hand and raising both of hers in surrender. “She says that if I hurt you, she will make me pay.”

Now this was getting irritating. “Jessica, I had the situation under control.”

Jessica shook her head, still keeping Natasha in her sights. “Clint,
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she’s the Black Widow. And she had you so distracted, you didn’t even notice I was in the room until she pointed me out.”

The Black Widow
. And he’d been pulling his punches and shooting to capture as if this were all a demonstration event. Rumor had it that the Black Widow had once set fire to a remote village’s only hospital as a diversion. If even half the stories Clint had heard about her were true, he was lucky she hadn’t poisoned him back in the stairwell.

“Don’t look so surprised,” said the Widow. “I did tell you I wasn’t a second-date kind of girl.”

Clint wondered whether she remembered her victims’ faces, the way he did. “You left out the part where the first date ends with the guy laid out on a slab in the morgue. Hands behind your back.”

“This really isn’t necessary,” said Natasha, bringing her arms behind her as requested. “I told you, Clint, I didn’t come here to spy on you.”

Clint secured the Black Widow’s wrists with his bolo. “Save the explanations for Commander Hill.” He didn’t know why he should be feeling disappointed that his sparring partner had turned out to be Stalin in a skirt. He tried not to think about the moment when their hands had touched, the way he had reacted like a goddamn kid. He took the gun from her holster and slipped it into his waistband, but decided against patting her down.

“I’d rather talk to you first,” the Widow said. “For security reasons.”

Clint ignored her. “Jessica? I’ve got her secured.” He drew the string on his bow. “Just so you know, this arrow doesn’t do anything fancy. You make a wrong move, I’m going to kill you, plain and simple.”

“And I’ll kill you again, just to be safe,” said Jessica, keeping her gun trained on the other woman. Touching her earpiece, she said, “Commander Hill? We have a contained security breach in the hangar
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bay involving an unauthorized foreign agent on board the ship.” She paused, listening, and then said, “Affirmative. Bringing her in. Have additional guards posted.” Looking up, she said, “All right, take her down, nice and easy.”

“Turn around and start walking,” said Clint, keeping his arrow aimed at the back of Black Widow’s head, since the rest of her was armored. When they had reached the hangar floor, Jessica stepped in back of the Widow, gun trained between her shoulder blades.

“Aim higher,” said Clint as they made their way through the maze of fighter jets and jeeps. “She’s wearing Vibranium.”

“Which you know because I told you,” Natasha pointed out. “So you see, I didn’t have to let you take me in,” she told Jessica.

“Shut up and keep moving,” said Jessica. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you were going after her, Clint?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t think I needed backup.”

“We’re supposed to be partners!”

“I’ve had the same trouble in the field, working with male agents,” said Natasha. “Some of them can be such cowboys.”

Jessica’s lips thinned. “I thought I told you to stop talking.”

“I wonder why you seem to dislike me so much,” said Natasha. “I mean, on the face of it, we two have quite a lot in common,” she went on, as if musing out loud. “I’ve been called the Black Widow, you’ve been called Spider-Woman—both arachnids. And of course, you used to be called Arachne, back when you worked for Hydra.”

Clint tried to control his surprise. He’d looked up Jessica when they started working together, and he knew about her troubled childhood and the medical treatments her father had given her. He knew that when she had first gotten her powers, Jessica had accidentally killed the first boy
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she had ever loved. He even knew about how Jessica had lost her powers in a fight with a psychotic mutant, and that tidbit was supposed to be classified and out of his security clearance level. But Clint had never suspected that his partner had once belonged to a terrorist organization.

“Perhaps,” said Natasha, “it is simply a case of what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. You dislike me because we are more similar than not.”

Jessica glared at the Black Widow’s back. “You know, I can just shoot you now and spare Commander Hill the trouble of executing you.” They had reached the doors that led to flight-deck control. As if on cue, six agents in full protective battle gear opened the door and lined up, all training their sights on one unarmed redhead.

The Black Widow didn’t bat an eyelash. “You won’t kill me. I’m too valuable a source of information. Besides, you wouldn’t shoot me for saying the truth, would you?”

“Honey,” said Jessica, “at this point, I’d shoot you for saying ‘Have a nice day.’ But you’re right, I’ll do it after we see Commander Hill, just in case she feels like torturing you first.”

COMMANDER
Maria Hill wasn’t happy. She’d been standing in the cramped, windowless launch-operations room all morning, smelling the handler’s stale breath as the two of them had attempted to figure out how to manage the imminent arrival of four more Viking jets on the already-crowded flight deck. There was a possible situation brewing in the Middle East and another one exploding in one of the ’Stans, and even though Maria was getting better at using Tony Stark’s three-dimensional interface screen, she missed the old tabletop “Ouija board” that allowed you
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to actually pick up the pieces. Between HQ’s screwed-up logistics and her coworker’s halitosis, she’d already been getting a headache before Jessica’s call.

“And that’s when Agent Drew arrived,” said Agent Barton, concluding his account of the past hour.

Cosa de mala leche
, thought Maria. Nothing Clint had said explained how the hell the Black Widow had managed to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flagship command center. One thing that didn’t require explanation was the timing. The Russian must have known that Colonel Fury was off on a mission and decided the Helicarrier was an easier target without Fury around. Maria resisted the urge to rub her right temple, which felt as though someone had tightened a vise around her skull.

“Okay, Ms. Romanova,” she said, “let me get this straight. You’re telling me that you’ve left your former organization. Setting aside the question of why the S.V.R. would just permit one of their most effective covert operatives to saunter off into the sunset, do you care to enlighten us as to why you decided on this career switch?”

“They were lying to me.”

Maria walked around the Russian woman, trying to get a read on her. She was extremely pretty, and she knew how to use her looks to manipulate men. Would she respond to the threat of disfigurement? Somehow, Maria didn’t think so. This woman radiated a kind of cool ruthlessness that would be difficult, if not impossible, to undermine. “Doesn’t being lied to come with the territory, Ms. Romanova?”

The Black Widow met Maria’s gaze. “Do you lie to your subordinates, Commander Hill? Or do you simply tell them when they are not supposed to ask questions?”

Maria nodded. “You have a point,” she conceded. Out of the corner
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of her eye, Maria watched the two agents who had brought Romanova in. Agent Drew was trying to keep it professional, but from the way she was looking at the Russian, it was clear that Black Widow had gotten under Jessica’s skin. Maria wondered whether Clint Barton had anything to do with that. Like Jessica, Barton was an outsider, and it was clear the two agents were friends as well as partners. Were they more than that, or did Jessica want there to be more? Maria wasn’t sure. With his blunt features and overgrown crew cut, Clint was certainly no poster boy, but he had a forthright, masculine quality that might appeal to some women. He also looked like the kind of guy who had grown up knowing how to hot-wire a car, secure a bottle of tequila, and break into a locked house. Unlike Jessica, Clint had never had superpowers to fall back on, which meant he had spent a lifetime honing his other abilities.

“Commander, if I may make a suggestion—” said Jessica, but Maria held up her hand.

“I’m not looking for any more input,” she said. “Either this woman is working for the S.V.R., or she’s gone rogue. Either way, she managed to infiltrate the Helicarrier and poses a considerable security risk.” Jessica opened her mouth and Maria held up her hand again. “On the other hand, she also possesses extremely valuable information. I want her taken down to the Raft for questioning.”

Clint nodded, as if he had been anticipating this. The Raft was where prisoners were placed when a maximum-security penitentiary like Rykers just wasn’t secure enough. Situated on an island near Rykers, the Raft contained eight levels of Adamantium-lined underwater cells and enough fail-safes that Manhattan’s citizens didn’t worry about the inhumanly powerful psychopaths on their doorstep.

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“Agent Drew, Agent Barton, you will accompany Ms. Romanova to the secure holding cell along with an armed escort. From there, she will be placed in additional restraints before being taken to a helicopter for transport. You two will be in charge of the questioning.”

The Black Widow kept her poker face. “Come on,” said Jessica, but as Clint moved to follow her, Maria gave him an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“Agent Barton, can you remain behind? I want to speak with you for a moment.” Jessica gave him a sympathetic look as she exited the room with her prisoner, clearly under the impression that her partner was about to be reprimanded. The Black Widow also glanced back at him, but Clint acted as though he didn’t notice.
Good
. When the door closed, Maria waited a moment before speaking.

“It wasn’t exactly the brightest move to take on an unidentified intruder on your own, you know.”

To his credit, Clint said nothing.

“On the other hand, it was you who spotted the Black Widow. So I’m giving you the ultimate responsibility, Agent Barton. I’m putting out a call for you to be joined by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with super-powers, as per regulations, but you’re in charge. Get every bit of information you can out of her, by any means you deem effective.” Maria paused. “But if at any point you think Romanova poses any kind of a threat, or if she shows any signs of attempting to escape, neutralize her.”

Clint looked slightly startled by this. “Is that really necessary, ma’am? She’s hardly going to be able to overpower both of us and someone with super-powers.”

“She shouldn’t have been able to break into a top military command center that’s been in flight for the past two weeks.”

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Clint nodded. “Understood.” He saluted, then turned to leave.

“Agent Barton. Let me remind you that there is no telling what information the Black Widow may have acquired while roaming around up here.”

Clint remained by the door, his back to her. “I am aware of that risk.”

“So you understand why she can’t be allowed to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. You know her record, Agent. This isn’t someone who’s just made a couple of bad choices. This is a woman who is up to her neck in innocent blood.”

Clint turned, his face set and hard. “Is this an order to take her out no matter what she does or says? ’Cause I don’t like it, Commander.”

“I don’t like it either, Agent Barton. But I don’t think she can be turned, and she certainly can’t be allowed to roam free. What choice does that leave us?”

A muscle spasmed in Clint’s jaw, and then he gave a short nod. “Am I dismissed now?”

“You are.”

At the last moment, Clint hesitated with his hand on the doorknob, looking back over his shoulder. “One last question. May I ask why you chose me for this particular assignment?”

Maria Hill took a deep breath, and then gave him the truth. “Because I watched Romanova while you were talking, Agent Barton, and I think she likes you. I believe she is under the impression that you two have struck up some kind of rapport. And that gives you a little advantage. Unless, of course, she is correct and you think you might have trouble neutralizing the threat she presents?”

Clint didn’t hesitate. “I don’t like it,” he admitted. “But I can do it.”

Maria nodded and watched him leave. Once she was alone, she
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closed her eyes and pressed her knuckles into her right eye. This was going to be one hell of a migraine, she thought.