AN: Thanks to Qweb for reviewing the last chapter.


The quinjet touched down in the middle of a clearing in a forest outside Philadelphia a little after 9 PM. The running lights flickered out as soon as the jet stopped moving, and the pilot cut the engines less than a minute later. On a command, the rear loading ramp opened downward, and a rectangle of light appeared on the ground as the cabin light spilled out through the opening.

The silence of the forest was suddenly disturbed by the sound of a motorcycle engine roaring to life, muffled though it was by the quinjet's bulk on either side of it. While the loading ramp was still a couple feet from the ground, the motorcycle idling in the quinjet's main cabin sprang into motion and burst through the opening. The driver popped a wheelie just before the front wheel flew out into space, and the motorcycle jumped the remaining foot-and-a-half to the ground. The rear wheel landed first, followed shortly by the front wheel.

The passenger, whose fiery red hair wasn't completely covered by her crash helmet, extracted one arm from around the driver's waist as soon as the motorcycle's wheels were on the ground. She pulled out a device shaped like a cell phone and pressed two buttons. The quinjet's loading ramp reversed directions about a foot from the ground and began to close once more. At the same time, the quinjet's invisibility shielding activated, and the only part of the jet still visible was the rapidly-diminishing rectangular view into the main cabin.

The passenger returned the control device to a pouch on her utility belt and let her arm settle around the driver's waist once more. She wore a small go-bag on her left shoulder looped around her neck, black to match the color of her leather catsuit. The driver also had a strap around his neck, though it was attached to a cylindrical object, also black. Instead of a leather suit, the driver wore a black leather jacket covering a deep purple vest, black combat pants, and boots. A crash helmet identical to that worn by his passenger was snugly fastened around his head.

The driver swerved expertly to avoid a fallen tree as he cut through the forest from their landing site to the service road that would lead them into the city.

"You know, I wasn't overly thrilled with the idea of bringing the motorcycle at first," Natasha commented into the two-way radio in her helmet, tightening her grip when Clint made a sharp right turn, "and now I think I'm even less fond of the idea!"

"You love riding along when I drive my bike," Clint argued as their path brought them alongside the service road.

"I suppose that's true," she acceded, "especially since I get to touch you more on the bike than any other time we're in public!"

Clint nearly lost control of the bike when she said that. She squeezed her arms tighter around him just as he regained control of the bike. He continued on as though nothing had happened.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Natasha scolded. She couldn't see the smirk that spread across Clint's face


"Hawkeye in position across from the target's house," Clint whispered 45 minutes later. He slipped his collapsible bow out of its compartment in his quiver and snapped it out to full length before laying it down next to him on the edge of the roof.

"The target is still at the restaurant," Natasha reported. The moment they had arrived in town, they had checked in with the S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance agent assigned to the target and determined that he had gone to dinner with a potential customer. Natasha had changed out of her S.H.I.E.L.D. catsuit into a dark green ankle-length dress and gone to the restaurant to take over surveillance. Now she was sitting at the bar, nursing a martini and observing the mark with her peripheral vision.

"He's just paid his bill. He's shaking the other man's hand, and heading for the door. Estimate he'll be home in 10 minutes," Natasha whispered into her palm a minute later. She stood up, dropped a $20 bill on the counter, and walked to the bathroom.


Three minutes later, Natasha slipped through the bathroom window into the alley running alongside the restaurant. She had changed out of the dress into her catsuit and tucked the dress into a pocket of the suit. Staying to the shadows, she moved silently toward the front of the restaurant. As soon as she was close enough to see, she pulled her hair up under her hat and slid deeper into the shadows to observe. The mark was standing by the door next to the doorman, who was flagging down a taxi.

A taxi stopped, and the mark got in. As soon as he was in, Natasha climbed up the fire escape next to her and began leaping from rooftop to rooftop, careful to keep the taxi in view. Fortunately, the driver seemed to hit every red light, making it easier for her to keep up. Fifteen minutes later, the taxi pulled up in front of the target's house. Natasha stopped on the roof of an apartment building less than a block away.

The man stepped out of the car, reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of $20 bills, handed them through the window to the driver, and said, "Keep the change."

"Thank you very much," Natasha heard the driver say before pulling back into the street. She climbed down the side of the apartment building she was crouching on, careful to keep her eyes on the target.

The target turned around and started walking up the steps to his house. Before he was halfway there, however, he stopped abruptly, a look of shock and terror in his eyes. A black arrow erupted from his throat. He let out a single gurgle, and fell to his knees, rolling over to his side when he landed. He was dead before the body had fully settled onto the stairs.

"Target eliminated," Clint said needlessly. "Black Widow, time to infiltrate."

Natasha jogged across the street and down the length of the block to the man's house. She carefully pulled the man's keys out of his limp grip and ascended to the door. Carefully, she inserted the correct key into the lock and turned it, listening for any unusual sounds as she did so. Not hearing anything, she slowly slid the door open.

The house was neatly cleaned and meticulously organized. Natasha scanned the room quickly, trained eyes alert for any signs of booby traps. Seeing none, she ventured further into the room. The man's computer sat on a desk against the far wall.

"Make it quick, Widow," Clint urged. "Someone must have already seen him. Local law enforcement is on the way."

Natasha didn't need the warning; she could hear the approaching sirens through the open front door. She quickly shut the door and strode over to the desktop computer. She pulled a flash drive out of her pocket and pushed it into the USB drive on the front side of the computer. The program on the flash drive immediately tunneled through the computer's security system and downloaded every file on the computer's hard drive.

The first police car pulled up in front of the house just as the files finished downloading onto the flash drive. Natasha spared a glance out the window and saw a pair of police officers circling around the house to the back door. She pulled the flash drive out of the computer, stowed it back in her pocket, and ran up the stairs to the second floor of the house. Just as she got to the top of the stairs, she heard a pair of splintering sounds as the police kicked in the front and back doors. Pounding footsteps on the first floor warned her that the police had entered and were closing in on her.

Natasha pulled open the door to the master bedroom, shut it behind her, and quietly pushed the dresser in front of the door to buy herself a little more time. She heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She pulled open the bedroom window and looked out. The house was separated from the building next door by about ten feet, and she could see a drainage pipe running down from the roof. She looked quickly in both directions, and determined that there weren't any police officers in sight. Taking a deep breath, she climbed onto the window sill just as the police started trying to force their way into the room. She pushed off from the window sill and reached forward with her hands.

She caught her gloved fingers around the drainage pipe. She nearly lost her grip, but held on and quickly slid down the pipe to the ground. As soon as she was on the ground, she slipped into the shadow cast by the building next door and hurried down the alley between the houses.

As she neared the street, she heard a motorcycle driving down the street. She timed her move carefully, and ran out into the street a couple seconds before the motorcycle would pass. The police officers at the front door saw her too late to stop her. She reached her arm out, looped it around Clint's waist as he passed, kicked her feet up, and swung herself onto the seat behind him. She grabbed her helmet from its holder on the side of the bike and put it on. As soon as it was on, she leaned forward into his back and squeezed her arms around him tighter.

"You were worried about me, weren't you?" she smirked.

Clint laughed. "Actually, I was. I was worried you would kill those cops and make a ton of paperwork for Phil, and that he would kill you!"


The two Avengers circled the city once to make sure they were not being followed. When Clint was satisfied, he drove back to where they had left the quinjet. They drove into the clearing a few minutes before midnight. Natasha pulled out the quinjet's control device and clicked two buttons again. The quinjet flickered into existence in the middle of the clearing as the invisibility shielding deactivated. The loading ramp rapidly descended to the ground.

The motorcycle reached the quinjet when the ramp was still a couple inches from the ground. Clint pulled it up into a wheelie just before the front wheel reached the ramp. The ramp reached the ground an instant before both wheels made contact with it. Clint cut the engine and coasted to a stop in the middle of the main cabin. He lowered the kickstand and climbed off the bike. Natasha took her place in the copilot's seat and began the preflight procedure while Clint locked the bike in place with a pair of chains attached to the walls. He attached a pair of clamps in the floor to the bike's wheels and moved forward to the pilot's seat.

By the time Clint sat down, Natasha already had the jet ready for takeoff. Clint hit the button to raise the loading ramp at the same time that he initialized the hover foils. The quinjet lifted off from the forest clearing, rotated 90 degrees to face east, and sprang forward as Clint activated the thrusters.


"Hawkeye and Black Widow report that they've eliminated the weapons manufacturer. They are currently transmitting the intelligence they gathered from his computer," JARVIS said in the Avengers Command Center.

Steve Rogers nodded without rising from his chair. "Send the information to Dr. Banner's lab and tell him to start working on it," he ordered.


Bruce typed furiously on his computer, searching for the financial information from the weapons manufacturer's computer. He leaned forward and groaned, rubbing his forehead with his palms. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright and started typing again, accessing Justin Hammer's bank records. He typed in the access code he had created with the backdoor program, and the list of accounts connected to Justin Hammer's Swiss accounts popped up on the screen. Bruce ran his finger down the list until he reached the number at the bottom of the screen.

Bruce clicked on that link and reached another page. He compared the information on the screen in front of him to the information from the man's computer. Finally convinced, he printed out the information he had found, and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin.

"JARVIS, tell the Captain that we've got him. Justin Hammer is going away forever."