Chapter Seven: Cosmic Humor
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Tony sat in a corner, squeezed in beside U behind the haphazard stack of his other belongs in a closet-sized storage unit, a laptop balanced on his knees. He had searched every database he could think of and several that weren't even plausible with the same results. There was nothing that linked Phillip J. Coulson, Agent of SHIELD, with Hydra.
Except for the fact that Hydra was part of SHIELD.
But SHIELD wasn't Hydra. There were many parts of SHIELD that remained untouched by the cancerous organization in its midst. This Coulson seemed legitimate. If he'd recruited Clint for SHIELD, Clint had gone to SHIELD.
Only, SHIELD knew about the Mechanic. They knew he was associated with Clint. If SHIELD knew, then that meant Hydra knew, and if Hydra knew Clint was associated with him then they might-
"DAMN IT!" Tony cursed aloud, slamming his head back against the wall as he started to hyperventilate again for about the millionth time in so many days. U gave a muted beep of concern and Tony leaned against the bot's chassis as he focused on controlling his breathing.
There was no reason to assume that Hydra knew for sure that he was the Mechanic. Furthermore, just because Hydra was in SHIELD's system didn't mean they had access to all of their files or that they would be looking at every new recruit.
Except Hydra knew that Tony had had assistance from an archer at least once.
Tony let out a soft whimper as he curled in on himself, pressing impossibly closer to U. He needed to calm down. Clint was smart and skilled. There was no reason to believe he couldn't take care of himself. Furthermore, Tony panicking in a tiny storage unit in the dark wasn't going to do anyone the least bit of good.
"Okay," he breathed aloud. "Okay, time to get a grip. Gonna relocate and wait for Clint to make contact. Or fail to make contact. Either way, he's got another week. One week. Then I'll save his ass."
One week. Tony was regretting that they had set the agreed upon contact date so far out. At least, this way, he had a bit of time to plan. Just one week, then if Clint had failed to contact him, he'd go extract the archer and they'd disappear.
He could do this.
Just one more week.
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Clint contacted him two days later. Things were going fine.
Tony tried to focus on getting back to his own routine. It took him a while to manage it.
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Several Weeks Later
Tony would like the record to show that his existence was clearly some sort of cosmic joke. His only family was a man with only one name on record and Tony still wasn't sure whether it was a first name or a family name. The closest thing he had to friends were an amnesiac with a cybernetic arm and a man recently recruited by the agency in which his lifelong tormentors were hiding. Never mind the fact that he looked nearly identical to a widely known celebrity.
Then there was the current situation, in which a nice, straight-forward burglary had somehow turned into a nasty fight involving knives, pepper spray, hair pulling, and biting. Oh, and had he mentioned the knives? Because they were an issue. Mostly because Tony couldn't figure out how his assailant kept pulling out more.
"Where are you hiding those?" Tony demanded, blocking a downward strike and wrenching the new blade from the woman's grasp. That momentary distraction left him open to a knee to the liver that sent him slamming into a desk. He made the most of the situation by rolling over the surface to give himself a bit of space.
The woman snarled something in Russian that was most unladylike. If Tony wasn't already convinced that they had gotten off on the wrong foot, he certainly was, now. She vaulted over the desk after him, her heel missing Tony only because he'd spun out of the way at the last minute.
"Okay, so obviously, we've got a difference of opinion," he spoke as they fought - dodge, parry, jab, knee block, left hook, evade-don't-fall-on-ass, kick. "See, I thought I was after the tech designs in the vault. Clearly, you called dibs. Can't we - where do you keep getting the knives?!"
Growling in pained annoyance as she slashed his arm, Tony gave up on his habitual rambling (look, he knew, alright? it just happened, sometimes) to put all his focus into his counterattack. Although he managed to land a few strikes, the woman parried, blocked, or evaded most of them. Then, she pulled a maneuver that was impossible. There was just no way - he knew that move!
Not that that stopped him from winding up on his face with her knee planted in his back.
"Wait," Tony grunted, having managed to get one of his hands between his throat and her arm. Damn, but she was strong. "Wait, I know that move. There's only one way you would know that move."
He managed to buck her off of him. She turned it into a controlled roll and jumped out of the way of the kick he sent after her. The brunet sprang to his feet, arms held ready in front of him.
"There's only one way you'd know that move - you trained with the Winter Soldier," Tony accused in Russian. "You're a black widow."
The widow lunged again and for a brief moment, Tony really thought he could keep the upper hand. Unfortunately, at some point, she had grabbed up her pepper spray and he failed to avoid a face full of it the second time around. A knee to the groin and then he found himself flung over her shoulder onto a table, knife against his throat.
"Who are you?" the black widow demanded in Russian, pressing the blade against his jugular.
"Would you believe I'm just a freelancer?" Tony asked in English, wincing when she pressed a little harder. "I was raised in Hydra! Similar to the Widow program, only no Red Room."
"Why are you here?"
"Well, since you seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see you, I'm assuming we're here to steal the same documents," he answered, doing his best to hold still to avoid the knife slicing into the vessels of his throat. Bleeding out in a tacky office wasn't how he wanted to go.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," she said, speaking English for the first time, accent perfectly American.
Tony met her hard gaze, breathing shallowly. "Honestly?" he replied. "Unless you've also defected, I probably don't have one."
Her expression flickered, brows drawing together so briefly he could have easily missed it, then she frowned at him. Making a rather intimidating sound in the back of her throat, she jerked away from him. "Stay out of my way!" she growled, equal parts warning and threat.
"Staying," Tony breathed out, slumping against the table as she disappeared from sight. Really, he needed to stop going up against people who could wipe the floor with him. Who knew there would be so many? Hydra training, his bruised and battered ass.
Tony wasn't sure how long he laid there before he felt capable of movement, but it was probably longer than it should have been. In his defense, the widow's knee-to-groin coordination had been spot on. Walking was going to be an issue for a while. It was probably also a good thing he wasn't planning on ever procreating because he wasn't sure that'd even be an option anymore.
Fucking ow .
Somehow, he made his way out of the building without triggering any of the security he'd so easily avoided on his way in. The trek back to where he was staying took a little over twice as long, but really, he was probably lucky to be going anywhere. Black widows were among the deadliest and most highly trained assassins in the world. Likely, the only reason Tony was even alive was because she hadn't wanted to leave behind any evidence.
He wasn't about to question the woman, thank you very much. A few cuts and bruises were much preferable to the alternative.
Locking the door to the flat behind him, Tony hobbled to the refrigerator to retrieve a bag of peas from the freezer before returning to the living room. With care, he settled onto the sofa and gingerly positioned the peas over his crotch. He grabbed his laptop off of the coffee table so he could send a message to his contact. His vision was a little blurry, his eyes still stinging from the mace, but he managed.
'Package intercepted by another party. Unable to retrieve.'
Tony sent it off, then laid his head back onto the arm of the couch. It had turned out to be a rough night. He ached everywhere. U was spreading a blanket over top of him as he drifted off to sleep.
The insistent jangling of his phone woke him some time later. Tony leaned half-off the sofa in order to grope around blindly for the electronic, finally locating it and bringing it to his ear. "Hello?"
"What do you mean you couldn't retrieve the designs?!" a voice on the other end demanded shrilly. "I hired you to do a job!"
Tony resisted the urge to sigh. "I mean, someone else was given the same job and they got there first."
"Useless piece of… I want my money back!"
"I'm not the one who had inaccurate intel," Tony responded, gritting his teeth and barely holding on to his patience. He wasn't about to return the partial payment he'd been given up front after what he'd had to endure. "You told me the documents would be in the vault in Maxworth's office. You assured me that the hardest part would be getting into the building. You failed to inform me that anyone else might be interested in the information. I'm telling you that I could not retrieve the documents because someone else got there first. If you want to go after them, feel free, but as far as I'm concerned? We're finished."
"You son of a bitch. I bet you didn't even try!" the client accused. "I will make you pay. There isn't anywhere you can-"
"Go ahead," Tony told him. "I'd like to see you try." With that, he hung up the phone and tossed it back onto the coffee table.
The man stretched carefully. He felt much better than he had when he had fallen asleep. Easing up out of the sofa, Tony shuffled towards the kitchen to find something to eat, throwing the thawed peas into the garbage as he went. (There was just no way he was eating crotch-peas. Didn't matter if they were technically still good. It wasn't happening. Ever.)
He found the fixings for a simple meat and cheese sandwich and a carton of strawberry yogurt. His refrigerator was looking pretty sparse, actually. It was probably a sign that he needed to go grocery shopping.
Tony wasn't much of a cook. It just wasn't a skill Hydra had found important enough to teach him so he hadn't learned. Oh, he could figure out simple meals, easily enough - he had to avoid starving, somehow - but anything beyond that was outside his capabilities. Clint had done most of the cooking when they lived together, on the occasions they didn't order pizza or the like. Perhaps, he ought to have had the man teach him.
Done eating, Tony put his plate and spoon in the sink, then went to take a shower. It was time to start brainstorming where he should go next. Staying in the same area after pissing off a client just didn't seem that great an idea. Granted, the man didn't know his name or where he lived, but it was better safe than sorry.
A towel around his waist, Tony wandered back towards the kitchen, intent on starting the coffee pot. Thinking was always better whilst caffeinated. He hadn't even made it to the end of the short hallway before someone spoke up from his living room.
"Your mechanical arm is unhappy I'm here."
He gave a startled yelp, grabbing at his towel when it started to fall. There, on his sofa, frowning prettily at U, was the very same assassin who had kicked his ass and tried to kill him but a few hours before.
"What are you doing here?!" Tony demanded, tone rather higher pitched than usual. Maybe it was undignified, but there was an assassin on his couch and he was in his bath towel. "How did you even get in?"
"I might have broken your window," the widow replied casually.
She finally turned away from U, who continued to beep at her in warning. Vibrant red hair framed her fair face, her green eyes sweeping clinically over him before raising to meet his gaze. There was a small cut in her lower lip from her fight with Tony and a darkening bruise around her left eye that wasn't.
It was easy to see how she would be a successful black widow. With her looks and slight size, anyone would underestimate her. Tony might have underestimated her had he not known what she was.
"My buyer decided they no longer wished to pay me for the designs," she informed him, shrugging a slender shoulder, "so I thought that yours might still be interested."
Tony stared at her. "You broke into my apartment to get the name of my client?" he asked incredulously.
The assassin rolled her eyes. "No. I let myself in to propose a compromise. Your buyer hired you to steal the designs, I got to them first. But let's say, I let you have them, and you give me half of whatever payment you've yet to receive."
"Why would you do that?" Tony asked suspiciously.
She rose to her feet and Tony took a cautious step back. The action made her mouth twitch in clear amusement. "You said that Hydra raised you, much the same way the Red Room raised me."
"That's right."
"And you left?" She arched a brow at him.
"I did," Tony confirmed.
"Then, we are much alike," she concluded as if it were really that simple. "Also, finding a new buyer on short notice will take more effort than I want to expend. It's easier this way."
"How do you know I'm not lying about that? About any of it?" he asked despite himself.
"Because you also use maneuvers you could only have learned from one man," the widow informed him, " and your eyes are too honest to let you lie." She reached into a pocket to pull out the disks that contained the designs they had fought so viciously to obtain, to prove that she had them. "You should get dressed."
Tony stubbornly took a minute to deliberate, frowning at her as he thought. After a brief standoff, the brunet finally turned back towards his bedroom, muttering under his breath. "You should learn how to knock."
When he emerged from his room again, it was to find the assassin wrapping ice cubes in a hand towel in the kitchen. As Tony watched, she brought the bundle up to her face. She leaned against the counter to stare back at him. After another moment, she canted to head to one side.
"What do I call you?" she asked.
"Tony," he replied. She continued to watch him, clearly waiting for more, so he elaborated. "It's Anthony, but I prefer to go by Tony."
"Just Anthony?" She sounded curious. Or maybe skeptical. It was hard to tell.
"If I have a surname, no one ever bothered to tell it to me."
"Interesting," she said in a tone that suggested otherwise. "I'm Natalia."
"Just Natalia?" Tony parroted back at her.
"I'll offer my family name when you offer yours," Natalia told him.
"I really don't know if I have one," he countered. "Could be Jude. Not sure."
She considered him, green eyes narrowing. "You're serious. You really don't know."
"Nope," Tony agreed. "Never have."
Natalia let out an indifferent hum and dropped it. "You should take me to meet your buyer, now," she said.
"Why?"
"Because I already had one client try to rip me off. I'm not about to let a second one do the same."
"That's fair," Tony allowed. "Okay, come on. He's pissed at me for telling him I couldn't get the designs, anyway, might as well have backup."
She set the bundle of ice in the sink and followed after him, picking up the disks from where she had set them beside her on the counter. He could feel her assessing gaze bore into his back. Just as he was about to ask what she wanted, she spoke up.
"Who is the empty room for?" Natalia questioned.
"Nobody," Tony answered, ushering her out into the hall so he could close and lock the door behind them. "I just haven't put anything in there, yet."
He could tell she didn't believe him even though she didn't press. Which was good, as it wasn't any of her business. They were just going to deliver the designs to his buyer and split the proceeds - hopefully without any complications. Then Tony could go back to pretending he wasn't leaving a space open for Clint and never think about this confusing (and rather painful) encounter with the black widow again.
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A week later, Tony woke to a face inches away from his own. He jerked back with a startled yelp and fell out his desk chair.
"Why are you asleep at your desk when you have a bed?" Natalia asked him curiously.
Tony sputtered indignantly. "How are you in my apartment when I've locked all the entrances?!" he demanded. He still hadn't figured out how she'd gotten in the last time - despite what she'd said, none of the windows had been broken.
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To be continued...
