I dialed Peter from my usual number, the one that was probably already flagged in every intelligence agency database by now. The rings dragged on painfully, and with each one, a knot of cold worry tightened in my chest. Finally, a tired voice answered on the other end, and I exhaled with relief. He was alive. Just caught up in his hectic life as always.
"Hey, Pete. How are you? Everything okay? Just skip the details, please." I deliberately emphasized that last phrase, and thankfully, Peter got the message.
"John! Yeah, everything's great. The last few days I've just been catching up on sleep, spending time with family, with MJ. I did a little work in the university lab. Basically, I'm recovering from last week's chaos."
"Great," I lied. The part about MJ was nowhere close to great. "How are things with MJ, by the way? Is the relationship moving forward?"
"Um... yeah..." Peter said uncertainly. I could practically feel him awkwardly scratching the back of his head. "Listen, John... here's the thing... this is really awkward to ask, but could you, uh..."
"Just spit it out. We're friends." I cut off his suffering.
"Could you lend me a couple thousand? I'll pay you back or work it off, I swear!" he blurted out in one breath.
Money trouble. I frowned. Considering the problem with Uncle Ben had been resolved, this shouldn't be such a pressing issue. Plus, I'd already given Peter a decent sum back when we were still working in the university lab. I was genuinely curious about what he needed such a large amount for, by his standards.
"No problem. But only on one condition: you tell me honestly what you need the money for. If it's not something for a phone conversation, just say so." I gave him an out. An oppressive silence hung on the line for a moment. Finally, Peter answered.
"For MJ," he said. One word that made my teeth clench. Damn it. He should have lied. "I want to make her happy."
"Make her happy? For a couple thousand?!" I couldn't hide my confusion. "What do you need to buy to make her happy? A diamond necklace from Tiffany?"
"She..." Peter's voice became quiet and pitiful. "She's got some new jewelry lately... expensive stuff. And I can feel her... pulling away a little. Like I'm not measuring up."
"New? Maybe it's something from Harry's gifts?" I asked, grasping at the last straw of hope. I understood intellectually that MJ was fickle, but I didn't want to believe she'd start an affair behind Peter's back.
"No... MJ doesn't like wearing the same thing twice. I know everything Harry gave her by heart. This is... different."
I exhaled slowly, trying to contain the rage that was threatening to burst out. Even with NZT, it was extremely difficult to maintain composure in the face of such idiocy. A genius. One of the brightest young minds on the planet, degrading himself before some woman who didn't value him at all. And not only was he degrading himself, he was sinking deeper into this trap, trying to solve an emotional problem with money. Someone else's money. No. This festering wound needed to be lanced, and it needed to happen today.
"Come to our place," I said in an icy, level voice, meaning the Base. "We'll talk there. Plus, I've got important news for you." Yes, it was time for Peter and Gwen to learn about S.H.I.E.L.D. and my plans for them.
"Alright, I'll be there in a couple of hours." Peter's voice carried notes of displeasure. He wanted money, not lectures. Well, well. We'd see how he sang when I rubbed his nose in his redhead problem. Funny, I had my own redhead problem now, too.
"I'll be waiting."
I ended the call and, summoning a taxi to the shipyard checkpoint, dialed the next person. Gwen.
"Greetings to the most beautiful grad student in the city." I smiled involuntarily, and the smile was genuine. What a relief it was to talk to a normal girl who wasn't trying to weave me into a web of secret organization intrigue. "What's new in your life?"
"Oh, I'm flattered, though I'm not a grad student. I'm just finishing my bachelor's degree," she replied. Her voice sounded tired, but steely notes pushed through. "But thanks for 'beautiful.' As for news, that's better discussed in person."
Right. So not a phone conversation.
"Then I suggest we arrange that meeting as soon as possible. At our place. Peter's apparently already on his way. I hope you can make it. We need to discuss some very important matters."
"Okay. I'll be there," Gwen said curtly and ended the call.
"Well, fine," I muttered, tossing the phone on the couch. "I didn't really want long goodbyes anyway. See you soon."
I gathered my things quickly. My fingers running along the seams, collar, and cuffs of my clothing for a thorough inspection for bugs and other spy gadgets would soon become second nature. Outside, the taxi was already waiting. I was grateful that Elena hadn't taken advantage of that ten-minute window when I was home alone after Natasha left. Dealing with her was the last thing I wanted right now.
As it turned out, I arrived at the Base before everyone else. Well, that was better for me. It gave me time to think about Peter's redhead problem. Turning on the computer in the lab, I easily logged into Peter's social media profile and found Mary Jane Watson among his few friends. Her page was the complete opposite of Peter's modest profile: thousands of friends, hundreds of photos. A real digital showcase, a carefully staged performance. And in this performance, her relationship status was conspicuously empty.
My brain, working at full capacity, began scanning the redhead's profile, looking for anomalies, inconsistencies. Anything that would serve as irrefutable proof that her relationship with Peter was a farce. And I found it. The inconsistency went by the name of Morris Bench.
My meta-knowledge helpfully clicked in my head: Hydro-Man. According to his own profile, a former sailor. This sailor had liked every single one of MJ's hundreds of photos, leaving under the most recent ones, posted just days ago, a whole string of enthusiastic comments. I clicked over to his page. Besides old photos from ships, his feed was filled with fresh shots: his wrist sporting a brand new Rolex, a view from an elite hotel window with a Manhattan panorama, and himself in an expensive tailor shop trying on a custom-made tuxedo. Aggressive marketing from a nouveau riche. He wasn't even trying to hide his sudden wealth. Considering who he was, the source of this money was obvious.
To be fair, Morris actually looked pretty good. He was the classic alpha male type: close-cropped hair, muscular build, strong cheekbones, and a broken nose that only added to his brutal charisma. All of this, combined with his new luxurious lifestyle and active attention, made him perfect bait. No wonder MJ took it. But how, HOW did Peter not see this?! How could a genius of his caliber, capable of inventing the most complex engineering solutions and calculating Nobel-level chemical formulas, be so blind in the simplest human relationships? They say it's true: love is blind.
The quiet hum of the opening elevator pulled me from my dark thoughts about how to break this truth to Peter. I instantly cleared the browser history, closed all tabs, and left the lab. Gwen was at the Base.
"Nice place," she said with a slight smile, looking around and sitting down on the couch.
"While we wait for Peter, we can discuss what to name our kids." I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
Oh yes. Her shocked, indignant, and embarrassed expression all at once was worth that stupid joke. I couldn't help it and laughed, feeling some of the day's accumulated tension release.
The laughter died down. I caught her gaze, and my face became serious again.
"Okay, jokes aside. Tell me what's going on with you, since it was not a phone conversation."
Her name was Ava Orlova, but in the shadows it had long been replaced by a title: Red Widow. She was the pinnacle of the reformed Soviet Red Room program, the answer to a string of betrayals by the old model Black Widows. The KGB had reconsidered the entire approach to creating living weapons. Psychological breaking and brutal drilling gave way to intellectual and genetic superiority. Candidates were now selected for the X-gene and raised in isolated academies. The emphasis was on emotional control, charisma, and complete symbiosis with their innate abilities.
The program's goal was to create not broken killers, but perfect agents of influence. Operatives capable of infiltrating the highest echelons of Western power without leaving a trace or evidence, becoming their cancer. Ava was the only one who passed the twelve-year selection. The only one who survived. The other ninety percent of candidates were weeded out by the ruthless elimination of those who failed their missions. She earned her title by becoming the executioner of traitors.
Her appearance was as much a weapon as the stiletto hidden in her glove. She had an athletic yet distinctly feminine figure: a narrow waist, expressive hips, and a modest chest. Her skin was flawless and pale, seeming almost like porcelain. She had top-model features: high cheekbones, full lips, almond-shaped eyes the color of storm clouds, and a cascade of wavy platinum hair. Behind this fragile, almost otherworldly beauty hid one of the world's most effective specialists in infiltration and elimination.
The combination of elite Red Room training with an inborn Alpha-level mutation made Ava a universal soldier. Her gift, controlled electrokinesis, was lethal in combat, but its true power revealed itself in more delicate work. In seduction. Slight alterations to a target's bioelectric field, modulation of their neural impulses, creating euphoria from a single touch. It was this unconventional application of power that made Ava so effective. Her dossier contained not a single failure. And the mission to steal blueprints for Stark's experimental missiles, capable of elevating her Motherland's might, was not meant to be an exception.
A closed charity gala at Stark's Malibu mansion became her hunting ground. Under the guise of a French investor in high technology, Ava wasn't the hunter but the prize. And Stark, as analysts predicted, took the bait himself. She played the game with a methodology refined over years, letting him think he was conquering her. At the key moment of their flirtation, standing on a balcony overlooking the night ocean, she used her ability. When their fingers accidentally touched, a visible spark of static electricity jumped between them. This wasn't just a discharge. It was a concentrated impulse of pure attraction, directed straight into his nervous system. Men after this, as Ava put it, melted. Tony Stark, playboy and genius, was no exception.
The night in his penthouse became the operation's climax. Using her powers, she created a low-level bioelectric field around them. It was a web of invisible threads resonating with his nerve endings. Every touch was intensified to the limit, every sensation heightened to pure euphoria. Even for him, this was a completely new, almost supernatural experience. To be fair, Ava enjoyed that night, too. Stark had experience, and for a brief moment she felt a pang of regret that such a genius didn't serve her country. She immediately classified the thought as professional weakness and suppressed it.
Near dawn, when Stark slept soundly in her arms, Ava proceeded to the finale. Cold and focused, she slipped out of bed. Concentrating a powerful but brief EMP pulse, she created a blind spot in the local security sensors around his personal terminal for a fraction of a second. Using an induction interface built into her glove, she connected to the device. Copying an encrypted file marked "JCHO_PROTO_FINAL" onto a disguised flash drive took seven seconds. Everything went smoothly. Frighteningly smoothly.
Leaving the mansion before dawn, she was confident of triumph. The failure was discovered only twelve hours later, in the sterile silence of one of the KGB's classified labs. An analyst, pale as a sheet, reported to the handler: the blueprints were a dummy. Deliberately planted disinformation containing outdated and incomplete data. Stark had been playing her from the very beginning.
Red Widow had failed a mission for the first time in her life. The word failure tasted like poison on her tongue. It was a crack in the monolith of her perfection.
Her taciturn handler didn't dwell on the failure. There were no reproaches, no punishment. Just a new order, delivered in a cold, colorless voice.
"Eliminate the traitors to the Motherland. Romanoff and Belova. This time, failure is unacceptable."
The new word, failure, bred an unfamiliar feeling in Ava's soul: cold, burning fury. She would not make mistakes. She would wash away the shame of the Stark failure with the blood of the Black Widows.
Waking up, Tony Stark stretched lazily, feeling silk sheets slide across his skin. A smug grin played on his face. Memories of last night were, without exaggeration, divine. He stared silently at the perfectly white ceiling of his Malibu penthouse, but within moments, he noted an inconsistency. The cold spot on the bed beside him.
His platinum goddess was nowhere to be found.
"JARVIS!" Stark's voice, hoarse from sleep, echoed through the room. "Status on our charming guest? I hope she's not trying to steal the silver spoons."
"Sir," came the flawless, emotionless voice of the digital butler. "The charming guest left the residence at 5:17 a.m. Analysis of biometrics and energy fluctuations during the night confirmed she is an unregistered mutant, presumably Alpha-level. Due to the high risk to your safety, Protocol Doppelganger was activated."
Tony froze for a moment, then leaned back on the pillows and burst out laughing.
"Holy shit! And I thought it was love," he muttered into the void. "So all that performance with the electric shock wasn't just foreplay? She knew which buttons to push, literally. Did we manage to identify our super-spy?"
"Presumably, this is Ava Orlova, also known as Red Widow. An intelligence community legend, until now considered a myth."
"Damn it, the Soviets!" Stark sat up in bed. "Old tricks from an old, dusty playbook. They'll never leave me alone. Jericho is too juicy a morsel for them."
"The disinformation package containing outdated project data was successfully copied by the agent, sir. Perimeter defenses have been reinforced, and security has been elevated to Code Red. I would advise you to reconsider your future policy of selecting temporary partners regarding their possession of superpowers."
"Go to hell, you digital eunuch," Tony muttered without malice, getting out of bed. "Actually, no, wait. Don't go. Draft a letter for Pepper and a couple of our favorite generals. Subject: 'Urgent Conference Call.' And prepare the plane for tomorrow. We're flying to Afghanistan!"
"Acknowledged, sir," JARVIS replied emotionlessly. "Confirming departure date: September 30, Afghanistan. Regarding the time for the conference call..."
"Leave that to Pepper. She's way better at dealing with people than you are. You're just a brilliant piece of code, don't forget."
"Acknowledged. What purpose should I list for the Afghanistan visit in the internal report?"
Tony walked to the panoramic window overlooking the ocean. A familiar spark of excitement and genius lit up in his eyes.
"Presentation!" He smirked. "They wanted to study my technology? Perfect. Let's give them a front-row premiere. It's time to unveil Jericho to the world. Time for a show."
//==============//