Success! It was after the meal, and Natasha was at a computer. She was no Stark by any means, but Petra hadn't been able to secure her own filed. If she had, it might have been harder, if the Stark Company firewalls were any indication, but Petra hadn't and it was easy. It turned out that Petra had had only two friends for much of middle school and all of highscool.
Gwen Stacy, daughter of the New York Police Department, had come into Petra's life sometime during middle school. She had no major instances on her report card, and didn't seem to have much that she could hold to her advantage. She had fairly high grades, though not as high as Petra's, a medium figure through middle school, bigger at the time than Petra's own, but not anything outstanding. She had abruptly rounded up in her last year of middle and kept supermodel looks through High School, but she had stayed friends with Petra throughout.
The other person in the picture, Harry Osborn, was sole heir of a medical company. That was interesting. While Stark industries was not in any way Oscorp's competitor, that was a rich company in their own right. They had declined in status after the owner of the company developed a disease and turned the whole company and his fortune to finding a cure, but it was still very much a big deal.
Harry had dated Petra for a while, but had abruptly started dating Gwen instead. While he had remained friends with Petra afterwards, it wasn't hard to hide what Gwen had done to steal his attention, especially as the timing perfectly corresponded with the increase of Gwen's cup size and she had gotten a number of reprimands for indecent exposure or inappropriate behavior in class afterwards. No wonder that Petra had been so willing to accept Bruce's response that night in the Hulk-chamber!

"I can see what you're up to." A voice called from behind Natasha. She closed all of the files and initiated a reboot of the whole computer to wipe off evidence, but the person behind her still knew. Turning after a seeming moment of hesitation, she cast further doubt that Natasha had done anything wrong.
Her effort was wasted. Nick Fury had seen what she had done. Natasha knew better than to try her play at innocent on him. He knew better - he was the one who deployed mission where she would use that same vulnerability to weaken opponents. Still, without the computer evidence of what she had seen, he couldn't invoke the World Security Council and get her in serious trouble for it. Still, he could act on his own. Better deny it. "Than what am I up to?"
"Something involving the computers at an unauthorized time." Nick couldn't do anything against her, and nothing that she had done was worthy of investigating for a woman of her status. "I still have my eye on you Natasha. If you have such a high need to do a solo mission, you can go on this one." It was the most that Nick Fury could do against her at the moment. She would have to miss her visit with Clint's family, but as they were off the books, she couldn't make a complaint against it.
Still, Nick Fury had underestimated her ability. Even though she still missed the flight and couldn't borrow resources to get there on time, she now had a block of time to put to her own use. It was time to put that information to the test. She didn't need a Shield computer just to find a location.
"Gwen Stacey," a voice called out in the dark of Gwen's room. She jumped, startled, and quickly hit the lights. A woman in a professional looking uniform was visible, standing by the bed. She had a figure almost equal to Gwen's own… Gwen almost felt jealous, but then she realized that her figure was just as good and that she looked younger than whoever this woman was. With the assurance that she was still the most beautiful person in the room, she relaxed.
"Who are you?"
"I am Black Widow," The woman said, smirking lightly. "You might recognize me from the invitation."
Gwen did recognize her, but wasn't about to admit it. If this person was famous, that might make her more attractive than Gwen, who's reputation was relegated to school and didn't have many friends to validate her popularity. "Why are you in my bedroom?" She asked.
"I am here looking for a lead on Petra. Records show that she is your friend." Natasha said.
"Is she under investigation for something?" Gwen said, and just to distance herself from any potential Spider related fiascos, "I'm honestly not sure if she was ever my friend. She just didn't go to school one day and hasn't even tried to contact me. It's been months with no contact! That's not how friends are supposed to act."
"Seems like that girl is doing one thing right," Natasha muttered, just loud enough for Gwen, who had no training in detecting such things, to hear.
"What do you mean?" Gwen asked, indignant. "Communication blackouts are not a sign of good friendship."
And Black Widow struck again. Why were people so malleable? "Petra was recruited for a honeytrap mission," that was the best way to spin this. A simple honeytrap mission with no actual feelings involved. "She was given a choice between doing the mission and keeping the target loyal to the group or giving up on the opportunity forever." That should invoke Gwen's jealousy and offend her. An indignant former friend would be better inclined to betrayal than a loyal one.
"She said that she was in love!" Gwen passionately exclaimed. Hook, line, and sinker. "How dare she lie to me!"
"The target is a middle-aged man," Natasha added fuel to the fire.
"What? That sort isn't right for Petra at all." Gwen insisted.
"I think that it would be beneficial to see what has worked to bait someone away from Petra in the past." Natasha requested.
"Aren't you supposed to be a professional?" Gwen asked, loosing all of her momentum. "Why are you asking me?"
This one was a bit trickier. "Professional?" Natasha asked, trying to squish a beam of appreciation for this clever young girl. She seemed to have some sense for staying out of manipulative trouble. Still, Natasha decided to give a true story and see if Gwen would pick up on its truth. "Once upon a time, a little girl was raised by a nefarious organization. They trained the girl in the ways of murder, elegance, and manipulation. She was horribly punished when she did things wrong, and better than most of the other girls in that organization's care, so she learned how to do it right. She hit all of the target's dead on, maintained the poise that ballet taught, and managed to prove herself under torture in her strength of will. When the targets were replaced by people, she hardly noticed the difference. When she started doing missions in the real world, she was perfect. That girl never cared, she was being a professional and doing the things that she learned right, never showing how one thing affected her in another way, desensitizing and compartmentalizing herself so that one thing truly didn't bother another part of herself. Still, as with all people who do those sorts of things, someone noticed. A different organization saw what she was doing and sent people to kill her, in order to stop the things that she was doing, things that made no difference to her. She survived against ten, she survived against fifteen, and she never left those enemies alive. This was the foe that she had been trained to fight all of her life. They didn't make a difference to her. Still, one day, the organization that she grew up with did something that she didn't like. They made it so that she could never have a child of her own, so that her loyalty would never be compromised. It was professional." Natasha sneered the world, reliving the memories with a surprisingly low amount of alteration. This wasn't quite the vulnerability that she portrayed for her targets. This was the justification of her means. "Still, the girl was professional. Even though she had lost all of her loyalty for the organization, she had nowhere else to go. The organization could hunt her down if she left, and no one would protect her from them. She started making accounts, shoring up money in a million fake identities. Still, none of that made a difference. She was still trapped. One day, instead of the squads that had tried to take her down in the past, the rival organization sent one man. He, contrary to the others, had her level of excellence in his chosen field. Still, she might have been able to dispose of him. Sentimentality made her listen to him and talk of offence at the seeming lesser threat. She didn't know how strong he was at the time, but she knew that he was willing to give her a chance. He offered her a chance to "reform" and join his organization instead. It made no difference to Natasha, but she was mad at her organization for taking away her hope for a family. She went with him, and the Red Room training facility was destroyed with her information. She tolerated suspicion from the new organization, because they had appealed to her sentiment," looking back at Gwen, Natasha was surprised to see sympathy on her face.
Gwen saw that the story was mostly true. It passed most of the tests that her father had given her to spot lies, but was a little iffy at parts. "How does that tie in with Petra's mission"
"…" boy that girl was good. Natasha hadn't distracted her with that personal story. Even Tony Stark himself had been derailed from his questions with a less graphic history. Loki, revered by the Vikings as a God of Lies, had pounced on less information than this. How was this teen doing better than all of them? The truth was all that would work now.
"Her position gives her a lot of free reign and trust from the head. That lets her do pretty much whatever she wants to, as long as she follows her open-ended orders. If I can get her mission to view me with something resembling that level of devotion he gives her, I could get a lot more freedom and possibly steal her place. She has taken that position and elevated herself to a team-wide peace-maker from one handler position for one asset in addition to now being someone to curry favor with. I want that" Natasha admitted. It was petty, but that was the truth. She had hoped to win herself the position that Petra had made, and robbed of the opportunity, she was trying to steal it.
"That still doesn't seem very professional," Gwen said, but she was somewhat convinced already.
"Professionality." Natasha said, with absolute assurance, "Lets you do the mission well. Sentiment, on the other hand," Natasha said, looking straight into Gwen's eyes, "shows you which missions you take and who you betray."
"What do you want?" Gwen asked. That was all it took for her.