Arc and Ki

by Miklagaard

A certain mysterious and beautiful Japanese redhead comes knocking at Tony Stark's Malibu mansion with insights into an equally mysterious power. Pepper has concerns, but Tony was sure this would be amazing anyway because: Redhead! Which ever way it played out... it was going to be one hell of a ride.

5. Moving On and Moving In

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction and no ownership of any intellectual property is claimed or implied. Quotes from original sources are included, but rather than disrupt the flow of the story, I will acknowledge them in general here. All instances of irony are likely intentional.

Synopsis of Previous Chapters: Ranma Saotome canoed to California in pursuit of a hare-brained plan that actually seems to be working... if not quite the way expected. Tony Stark has hired someone with unusual abilities that can help with his professional and super-heroic life. There are, of course, those who would object to the partnership back in Nerima and in the halls of SHIELD, but they have been kept from interfering so far. Maneuvers are happening, however.

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(Chapter theme song: Sweet Dreams – Marilyn Manson (cover of The Eurythmics))

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Akane's flip-phone vibrated in the padded pouch strapped to her thigh beneath her skirt, not making a sound anybody in the house could hear, but that she could still feel. Well, Genma and Happosai could have heard it if they were present, but Happosai hadn't been seen for months, and Genma was most thoroughly in flight mode. Between the legal scare he'd been given and the fact his wife's ire had been stoked again, she'd bet the part-time panda would stay gone for at least three days. For that matter, neither of the older martial artists had ever been too interested modern devices anyway. They hadn't investigated in the past, anyway.

The teen waited for a commercial break in the television show her family was watching, then excused herself to go upstairs to her room. Once there, she retrieved her phone from the hiding place Ranma had sewn for her... something she had teased him about rather than getting mad about being shown up in 'feminine arts' like she used to... and checked the small LCD screen for the text message that had arrived. 'Call u at 21h – R' is what it said. She checked the time display and saw she had a quarter hour before the call. She was surprised at the identity of the person who sent the message, but it followed a procedure they'd practiced for months with Koyuki, her boyfriend.

She thought it encouraging that Ranma was duplicating the method, he was pretty disdainful of technology at odd times, and she wasn't sure if he'd ever get his own phone. No doubt his new boss had insisted. Hopefully that would serve to make the boy fully join the 21st century at long last.

Akane quickly changed into her sweatsuit, then quietly opened her window and slipped out to perch on the sill a moment. Jumping lithely, she caught hold of the edge of the roof and swung up to crouch atop the tiles. Staying low and silent, she skulked along the roof to the back corner, then jumped down to the top of the wall. Just as stealthily, she quickly ran along the top of the wall to the back of the property, then hopped down behind the dojo where some bushes screened her from sight. Finally, she leapt up to cling to a rafter on the underside of the protruding roof while using her feet to push up a loose panel, letting her slither inside the darkened dojo. Instead of dropping to the floor, she reclined comfortably atop the rafter.

A few months before, she wouldn't have been able to perform a couple of the actions she just used to get to her hiding spot... or at least not without a lot more effort and noise. That night, however, she wasn't even breathing hard. Ironically, her theoretical- (and now firmly ex-) fiance only got around to giving her useful training tips... finally... when it was to help her 'cheat' on him. Better late than never, she supposed, but he absolutely deserved the few, relatively gentle, smacks upside the head she gave him when he finally caved. Mild indignation aside, it was nice that the two of them were actually able listen to and learn from each other these days. It only took removing the betrothal that every-goddam-body in Nerima had been obsessing over from the equation to make it happen.

Her phone had the ring and vibrate turned off for incoming calls, so it was only because she was looking at the phone's display that she knew when the call came in. The caller ID was blocked, but she knew who it was. Thumbing the button to accept, she put the phone to her ear and said: {"Hey, Ranma! How are things going? Get engaged to anyone new?"}

Ranma groaned and chuckled with the deeper tones of his male form. {"Hey, Tomboy. No, no fiancees yet. My new lawyer is supposed to protect me from that. I heard Eri was by there a bit ago, right?"}

{"You mean Kisaki-San,"} Akane made a point of using a chiding tone to go with her formality. {"Yes, she was here almost two hours ago to tell the parents to stay away from you. You got chummy with her kind of quick. Though she's a good looking woman, so I shouldn't be surprised. Playing the Casanova again?"}

Ranma groaned again, but he could tell she was teasing. {"She's nice looking, all right, but she has a kid who's a teenager. She'd definitely not be interested. I picked her because I read the best reaction from her with the Wild Tiger's Instinct Truth Sense. I'm pretty sure I explained everything about my trip back to Japan in that e-mail I sent you."}

{"You did, you did,"} Akane said cheerfully. {"I was just messing with you."}

{"Oh... well thanks ever so much."}

{"So she's too old to be attractive?"} Akane accused.

{"Oh, c'mon!"} Ranma sighed. {"I just said she was good looking."}

{"I really thought better of you than to buy into that 'Christmas Cake' thing most Japanese men believe. Tsk-tsk, Ranma,"} she chided. {"Tsk-tsk."}

{"Look. Fine. She's a hot older woman with a sexy librarian look going for her. If she weren't A: my lawyer; B: the mother of a kid; and C: uninterested in someone as young as me; then I'd do her in a second."} Ranma's voice was a monotone as he made this declaration. {"Is that what you wanted to hear?"}

{"Yes, that's what I wanted to hear."} She paused for effect. {"Casanova."}

"Oh my god" Ranma moaned in English, making Akane laugh. {"Y'know, I called you for a reason, but I can't remember what it was anymore."}

{"Sorry, sorry,"} Akane apologized. {"It's just that making accusations is a lot more fun when it doesn't matter anymore and I'm just playing around."}

{"At least that part changed."}

{"What didn't change was how you still act like a dummy, falling for it and getting flustered every time,"} the youngest Tendo pointed out gleefully. {"Seriously, though, how are things going over there?"}

{"Pretty good. I'm rattling around in this huge house they gave me trying to figure out how I'm going to do my training. They don't want me training outside until they figure some stuff out."}

{"They gave you a house?"} Akane was a little shocked. {"An entire house and they just gave it to you?"}

{"More like let me borrow. I'm supposed to pay rent sometime, but they haven't figured out that part either. Surprised the hell out of me,"} Ranma admitted. {"Apparently Tony just had a house lying around that he could let me use."}

Akane gave an impressed whistle. {"Wild. I guess it comes with the territory. Stark-San is like the richest man on Earth or something, right?"}

{"He's pretty high on the list,"} Ranma agreed. {"Smallest room in this place other than the bathrooms is like twelve tatami mats or more."}

{"Wow. I'm a little jealous."}

{"Well hold off on the jealousy until I find out how much I'm paying. Even with the salary they promised, I might get kicked out if the rent is too high,"} he joked.

{"Or they'll kick you out when the walls get exploded."}

{"Ehh,"} Akane could hear the wince in Ranma's voice. {"Hopefully I can avoid that. The Joketsuzoku did leave."}

{"Shan Pu left for good? You're sure about that? Really sure? Really-really sure?"}

{"Ahh... really-really sure? Uh... crap,"} Ranma muttered. {"Guess I better learn where the hardware and lumber stores are."}

{"You know, that might be why they don't want you to train in the open,"} Akane speculated. {"To make sure you don't draw people in."}

{"I think they were more worried about government officials freaking out at what I can do,"} Ranma said. {"Though the wackos tracking me down is a good reason to go along with it for now."} He sighed, and changed the subject. {"How are things going over there? Anybody giving you trouble about Eri showing up?"}

{"Nah. Lots of blustering while we finished dinner, but it went back to the same routine. You know how it is... out of sight, out of mind when it comes to issues. I don't think it's even occurred to anybody that I had anything to do with you escaping, so I'm free to just sit back and watch. I'm almost disappointed Nabiki hasn't figured it out."}

{"That is kind of surprising,"} Ranma responded with a little perplexity. {"I was half-expecting one of her minions to be waiting on the shore when I arrived in America the first time. Well... quarter-expecting anyway. I was definitely keeping an eye out at the airport, but I didn't see any of them."}

{"You know, you're probably giving her too much credit,"} Akane stated with a long-suffering tone. {"She's not some kind of criminal mastermind."}

{"Easy for you to say. She didn't aim it at you as much."}

{"It'd be more accurate to say the lot of you are a pack of doofuses for letting her run rings around you like that."}

Ranma paused a moment before replying. {"Ouch. True... but still... ouch."} Not quite shut of the habit of letting his pride be offended, he countered: {"What about the ten-yen challenge? You got played too."}

{"More like Dad was the doofus and I had to go with it since he didn't act like a real father and stop her,"} Akane said with some bitterness. {"Enough about that. What else happened during your first official day in America?"}

{"They gave me this special computer visor thing. It's pretty useful. I'm getting some coaching from JARVIS through it."}

{"Who's JARVIS?"}

{"Tony's computer. He can talk and teach and do a lot of other things."}

{"Whoa. That's some... pretty Sci-Fi stuff he's got going on there."}

{"Yeah, it's pretty amazing,"} Ranma agreed. {"Helps that he's a computer, 'cause he can send stuff to me and respond to questions really fast and non-stop. I can also read stuff with the visor at full speed."}

{"That's handy,"} Akane said with a bit of envy. She wasn't up to Ki-speed reading like Ranma could do yet, but with their change in relationship came the fact that her former fiance actually listened to her requests seriously and taught her what she asked, not just what he thought she should know. It was her plan to train herself up enough to be able to use technique before she started college.

{"Other than that, there was just a lot of running around in the morning to see the house and try on some of the clothes they ordered for me from the crazy Edna lady."}

{"Oh boy..."} Akane rubbed the bridge of her nose. {"'Crazy Edna lady'?"} It wasn't the sort of descriptor that she wanted to hear applied to people near her disaster-prone pseudo-brother.

{"Um... maybe I shouldn't call her crazy. She isn't, like, Nerima crazy or anything. She was just..."} Ranma stopped to think how to put it. {"She was just really enthusiastic about clothes. And designing clothes. And especially designing clothes that work with both my forms. Edna got this... unholy light in her eyes when she saw me change from boy to girl. Called it her greatest challenge yet."} He sighed audibly. {"After that, I had no damn idea what she was saying most of the time, she was talking so fast and kinda bouncing off the walls. Pepper was nodding along to everything she was saying, so... I guess she was doing a good job? She already made a bunch of bodysuits that stretch when I change, so I'd have said she was done, but she's got a lot of other stuff planned. Ugh."}

{"It sounds like you got the exclusive attention of a high-level fashion designer. You know, the kind of thing a peasant girl like me can only dream of?"} Akane spoke archly and with a tinge of annoyance. {"Suck it up. Or better yet, enjoy the opportunity. I bet she comes up with some really fantastic stuff, you know."}

{"Yeah, OK. We'll see. I hope you're right."}

{"It's gotta be better than the Maoist Chic you were rocking for so long,"} Akane suggested.

{"Hey!"} Ranma protested humorously. {"I'll have you know those suits were the height of fashion in the abandoned army crates I fished them out of!"}

{"Uh-huh."} Akane sounded somewhat less than convinced.

{"Well, anyway... after that, I picked out a lawyer for American stuff, we got lunch with her, then I spent the rest of the day following Tony and Hogan-San to start learning the bodyguard job."}

{"Hold up,"} Akane raised her free hand in a stopping gesture event though Ranma could not see her. There was a bit to unpack from that one sentence, but the least significant item absorbed her attention first. {"You use honorifics for this Hogan fellow? You?"}

{"I mean... he is the previous bodyguard who's teaching me the job, and nobody calls him 'Harold.' Ever."} Ranma explained. {"Don't want to just call him 'Hogan,' 'cause I usually only do that to piss people off. I'd use his nickname, but it's 'Happy.' You can see how that'd be confusing."}

Thinking of Happosai, Akane had to agree. {"OK, I get that. And you got another lawyer?"}

{"They told me it was a good idea. Can't have too many lawyers, Tony says."} Ranma sounded ambiguous about it for his part, but had obviously gone along with it.

{"Huh. Well that adds some perspective."}

{"What do you mean?"}

{"It was something Kisaki-San said,"} Akane told him. {"She said I should maybe get a lawyer too even though I'm not in trouble. What do you think?"}

{"Well... it is lawyers saying more lawyers is good... you'd kind of expect that, right?"} Ranma considered aloud. {"Though they really are helping me, I gotta admit. Looks like the whole forged marriage certificate thing we were worried about is totally shut down now. And I can do what I want over here legally now... though there wasn't much stopping me before."} He went silent to think it over. {"If you want to keep your dad from pulling the same crap with some other boy, you might want to do the same. I wouldn't put it past my Pops to try adopting some sucker to take my place. Like Kumon Ryu, or Ryo... somebody else."}

The frame of Akane's phone creaked warningly as she nearly clenched her fist at the name Ranma almost said, but she refrained from destroying the device. {"I see,"} she said coldly, unbeknownst to her making Ranma shiver with lingering trepidation from their days as a betrothed couple. {"That would be a problem."} She fulminated on the thought for a while. {"But I haven't seen any hints of that. They're all convinced you'll be back any day now."}

{"We both know that ain't happening. They'll have to figure it out too, someday,"} Ranma pointed out.

Akane sighed. {"True, but leaving home and getting emancipated seems like jumping off a cliff. We can't all have cushy jobs and big houses handed to us."}

{"Hey! I went through a lot of effort to get the job... even though that wasn't the original plan... and I had no idea it was an option... and it was somebody else who thought of it,"} Ranma said unconvincingly. {"Maybe you can just get the marriage blocking thing only. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer."} He let out a gusty sigh. {"Seems like you should get a lawyer after all, I think."}

{"I can't afford it,"} Akane admitted reluctantly. {"Not if I want to go to college without having to work two or three years instead of one after high school."}

{"I've got money,"} Ranma offered. {"Or I will soon once things get worked out. I hope. I can help you out."}

{"I can't let you do that,"} Akane immediately denied.

{"C'mon, sure you can! Shit... I was planning to live in the woods over here! What do I need money for?"}

{"No... Ranma..."}

{"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!"} Ranma fired off the demands rapidly. {"Seriously! You and Koyuki and the rest helped me get out. More importantly, you turned loose of me instead of going along with what everybody in Nerima was telling you to do and buying into the betrothal crap! Let me help you with this!"}

{"Well..."} Akane responded reluctantly. {"Kisaki-San did say I could get some free legal advice from a man named Maeda if I helped him with his Nerima plans. Is that guy for real?"}

{"I don't know about actually doing anything, but yeah... he definitely looks like he'll try,"} Ranma assured her. {"Or the people he's grouped up with will. I was getting Kato Shidzue vibes off him, definitely."}

Akane snorted in amusement. {"Are you only mentioning her because she's the only political figure after the Meiji era you know?"}

{"Uh, well... she is easy to remember. It was pretty hilarious the way Kuno freaked out when they did that history unit on her. I just had to say her name to make him go to pieces in a fight."} Ranma smiled at the chuckle he got from his friend/pseudo-sibling. {"Point is, Maeda-San's totally a crusader. Got a good feel of him too with Wild Tiger's Instinct Truth Sense."}

{"You and your technique names..."} Akane shook her head ruefully.

{"Hey!"}

{"OK, I'll talk to him. See if I can get that free advice. Then we'll talk."} To get away from the subject, she asked: {"How did the job training go?"}

{"Um, pretty good, I guess,"} Ranma replied. {"Wasn't much to it. Just trailing along to see how a typical day went. Played around with guns for a bit in the basement."}

{"Tsch,"} Akane scoffed. {"Guns? Really? I guess that's Americans for you. Kind of embarrassing you joined in, though."}

{"I didn't shoot the guns,"} Ranma protested, and she could hear the eye-roll in his tone over the trans-oceanic all. {"I just showed them some of the stuff I could do. It was just a waste of time, really..."}

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"Ya know, already told you those bullet things don't do much," Ranma half-complained as she, her employer, and Happy Hogan stood in a test chamber that JARVIS had automatically reconfigured as a shooting range. She spoke in a louder tone than normal due to the ear-protection the men had insisted they all wear.

"And I believed you... mostly," Tony responded. "It was Happy here who didn't buy it."

"I totally believed her from the start!" Happy defended himself, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Shush! Do you really want to miss out on her pulling a Supergirl routine? Just go with it for a second, will ya?" Tony badgered him.

"I'm... standing right here. Can hear you plotting," Ranma pointed out as she stood with her hands on her hips. She was wearing one of the skin-tight bodysuits Pepper had arranged for her that morning, without any additional outerwear, and the two Americans were very much enjoying the view.

Tony waved off her entirely rational critique. "Anyway, to assuage Happy's dire, paranoid suspicions..."

"My what?"

"...We need to do some testing. We're not going to jump straight to shooting at you, though. From what you say, you can track bullets in flight, right?"

"Yeah. Easy." Ranma shrugged confidently.

"OK, let's prove it, then," Tony said in a reasonable tone. "Stand off to the side there." He pointed to the side of the table where several locked cases rested along with a bag of various ammunition.

"Hai... hai..." Ranma agreed as she strolled over to the indicated spot. "Why you even have the things, anyway?" She nodded at the cases.

"I was a weapons manufacturer, you know," Tony told her. "I needed to test things out every so often. Still do sometimes for my Iron-Man stuff."

"And guns are fun," Happy interjected.

"And... guns are fun," Tony admitted with a quirky shrug. "Putting holes in bits of paper is surprisingly entertaining."

"Uh-huh." Ranma did not look impressed.

"Eh... we'll run you through the safety course and have you try it out sometime," Tony told her while picking out a pistol clip from the bag. "You do kind of need to know how these things work so you can respond to them appropriately. Anyway... let's start with the .45 for the sub-sonic loads." He adjusted the safety glasses on his face and slid one of the cases over to his firing position, making sure the arrow made of tape on it was pointed downrange. He set the magazine next to the case and put a thumb on the sensor to unlock it. He opened the top, but didn't touch the pistol within yet. "Happy? You wanna play RSO?"

"Sure, boss," the bodyguard agreed. Though it was only the three of them in there, he conscientiously looked over the area to make sure no one and nothing other than the hanging target was beyond the table. "Lane is clear! Range is hot! You may load and fire your weapon!"

Tony raised the handgun until it was aimed at the target, then loaded the magazine and worked the slide to load a round. Bracing the base of the grip with his off-hand, he took careful aim at the bullseye ten yards away and squeezed the trigger to fire. He lowered the gun back on target after the recoil, then lowered it a little more as he peered over the top of the sights. "What the hell?"

The paper target was completely unmarked. Pistols were nowhere near as accurate as portrayed in the movies and TV shows, but he was an experienced shooter, and should be able to reliably hit within the 9-ring at that distance. Rechecking his sight picture, he made sure the notch and post really were aligned with where he wanted to aim and fired again. Yet again the paper was seemingly unmolested.

"Got a problem here!" Tony called over his shoulder as he released the ammo clip and pulled back the slide to eject the loaded cartridge.

"Range is cold! Safe your weapon!" Happy called back immediately by rote. As his friend and employer set down the unloaded gun and stepped back, he stepped forward. "What's the problem?"

"Bullets aren't going where I think they are," Tony told him with a mystified tone. See?" he asked as he pointed toward the target.

"That's weird... you looked dead on target to me," Happy replied as he pulled out a flashlight and used it to carefully inspect every square inch of the paper. "You're not using experimental loads again, are you?" he asked as he swept the beam over the floor, walls, and ceiling to look for streaks of metal or divots.

"Nah... strictly off the shelf ammo. Recoil felt like regular loads." Tony picked up the loose cartridge and examined it. "Looks fine to me." He grabbed a cleaning swab from the bag and pushed it through the ejection port until it poked out the muzzle. "Barrel is clear."

"Bizarre." Happy intoned. "OK, I'll look over your shoulder to check your aim and see if I can spot where it goes." At over 800 feet-per-second, a .45 caliber pistol bullet couldn't be clearly seen by the human eye... unless the eye belonged to a martial artist, if Ranma was to be believed... but it was possible to see a faint blur if one was looking along the flight path of the bullet to get a reasonable idea where it hit.

"Sounds good. Let's try this again," Tony said. "Call it, Happy."

"Lane is clear! Range is hot! You may load and fire your weapon!"

This time when the gun was aimed and loaded, Tony stopped and asked: "How does it look?"

Happy bobbed his head up and down and side to side to check the horizontal and vertical alignment of the gun barrel. "Looks on to me. Go for it."

Tony shot again. A hole remained stubbornly absent. "Shit! Did you see what happened?"

"Uh..." Happy peered perplexedly at the target. "You were aimed at the paper the entire time. I have no damn idea."

"Jeez... this is embarrassing," Tony quipped. "You know, Ranma..." he called over to his recent hire. "The way you were talking down guns, I'm surprised you aren't ragging on... our... asses..." his words slowed as something occurred to him. Still keeping the weapon in his hands aimed in a safe direction, he turned his head and looked at her. The redhead was standing with her arms crossed underneath her breasts, something she tried to take advantage of as she squeezed her arms together and gave them a little bounce. For a change, Tony was not distracted as he took in the pursing of her lips and dimples in her cheeks as she fought a losing struggle against a grin.

"Range is cold," Tony deadpanned and he unloaded the gun again and set it down.

"Range is cold," Happy echoed him as he crossed his arms and gave the teen a disapproving look. She did not look at all fazed by it.

"Ranma..." the billionaire slowly drawled as he just as slowly turned toward her.

"Ah... was not supposed to grab these?" she questioned impishly as she uncrossed her arms and pulled her right hand from behind the arm it had been hidden by. Her fingers were slightly fanned out, and pinned in between each pair of adjacent fingers was one of the fired bullets. "Sorry! Was too slow! Couldn't help myself!"

Tony glanced down and judged the distance between them. "You weren't even in arm's reach!" he objected with a put upon tone. Ranma just shrugged cheerfully. "I've heard the hand is faster than the eye, but this is a whole other level of ridiculous," he muttered. Letting out a long sigh, he said: "OK... first off? That was really cool. Second off? When mere mortals like me and Happy don't know where bullets that can totally kill us are going, it's fucking nerve-wracking. Please don't do that again without telling us."

"Shimatta!" Ranma's grin instantly turned contrite as she stood up straight. "Sorry! Sorry about that!" she apologized with a bow. "Didn't mean to scare!"

"It's OK," Tony said with a wave. "This will be a pretty funny story later, and nobody got hurt. I guess nobody could get hurt by you doing that for that matter." He stopped and cocked his head. "Just out of curiosity... if I came down with a sudden, terminal case of clumsy, tripped over my own feet like an idiot, turned around and accidentally shot in Happy's direction, could you stop the bullet before it hit him?"

Ranma looked down at her feet, then stepped half a pace closer to the men. Looking up, she declared: "I can now!"

"Holy shit!" a now-impressed Happy blurted. After yet another demonstration of the world-class martial artists abilities, he took her at her word and was awed by her claim.

"Definitely taking you along anytime I feel like doing some shooting from now on," Tony announced. Blowing out a breath, he went on: "OK! If it's like that, we can skip a stage or two. JARVIS? Roll the target back to me." The computer obligingly caused the hanger for the target to whir along the track in the ceiling until the paper was just in front of the table. Tony removed the still-unused target and set it aside. "Ranma? Go over there and stand in front of the backstop so I can shoot this lethal weapon at you."

"OK!" Ranma chirped as she trotted over toward the back of the chamber. Once there, she turned around and clasped her hands behind her back. Rocking on her heels a little, she looked back expectantly at the men.

"I seriously can't believe we're doing this," Tony muttered.

"No kidding." Happy nodded in understanding. "Want to call it off?"

After a brief pause, Tony replied: "And disappoint such a sexy-cute girl? Never."

"Oookay." Happy went along with it with some reluctance. Intellectually, we knew someone who happily participated in fights where gravity got warped was not going to be bothered by some bits of high-speed metal, but it went against years of firearm training to aim even an empty gun at anything that one didn't want a hole in.

"Call it, Happy," Tony requested.

"Right. Lane is NOT clear! Range is... god help us... hot! You may load and fire your weapon! Holy shit!"

Following the drill, Tony pointed the gun down-range. He loaded the gun. He took aim. And there he stood for several seconds while Ranma tilted her head to the side and blinked back at him in confusion. "I can't do it!" he suddenly declared as he unloaded and safed the pistol again.

"Ah c'mon you wimp!" Ranma yelled.

Tony chuckled. "I can't do it," he repeated. "I just can't bring myself to risk damaging such perfect, perfect tits."

"Really?!" Ranma cried with a voice far more aggrieved than someone who was not being shot at had a right to use. "Would help if I was guy?"

Tony took a moment to ponder. "That could work."

############

{"...So I went male and he finally shot me," Ranma concluded his story. {"It was fun at first..."} he stated, ignoring his friends giggles. {"I bounced a few bullets off my manly chest. Flicked a few hard enough to shatter them into hundreds of pieces. Caught any that were aimed at my eyes... 'cause a bullet in the eye does not sound comfortable... sand's bad enough. After that it got boring."}

{"Boring, huh?"} Akane huffed. {"Ranma... you're just weird sometimes."}

{"It was boring! That's all there was to it!"} Ranma insisted. {"Less so for the guys, though. They were having a grand old time once they really understood they couldn't hurt me. They took turns shooting all kinds of different kinds of guns at me and it really drug on, you know?"}

{"I sure it was just so tedious. Poor, poor Ranma,"} Akane teased. {"You'll just have to cry all the way to the bank, won't you?"}

{"Yeah, yeah. As jobs go, it beats the hell out of working at the Nekohanten, I gotta admit."}

{"No kidding!"}

{"And we got to do some martial arts stuff later in the day, so I really got nothing to complain about,"} Ranma admitted. {"Things got real interesting when Natalie came by for some paperwork stuff."}

{"Natalie?"} Akane prodded with an intrigued tone. {"Who is that? What's she like?"}

{"I don't know. I only met her yesterday for the first time. She's a... not a lawyer, but helps with law stuff?"}

{"Wait... umm... a paralegal?"}

{"Yeah, I think that's it."}

{"And what's so interesting about a paralegal?"}

{"Well... OK, that part wasn't too interesting. But she knows some of the Art! A little bit of several forms. Really interesting lady..."} Ranma's voice drifted off in remembrance.

{"She's pretty?"}

{"Gorgeous,"} Ranma replied instantly. {"I heard she used to be like a lingerie model or something before... uh..."} he want on more hesitantly, {"Should I... be saying that to you...?"}

{"Yes, it's fine."} Akane rolled her eyes. {"I have a boyfriend, now. You and I never had anything real to break up in the first place. You can absolutely tell me how good you think an ex-underwear model looks. You can tell me how good you think a current underwear model looks. As long as you don't start talking to me about nude models, we're good."}

{"Whew..."}

Snorting at his evident relief, Akane asked: {"Did you ask her out?"}

{"You're kidding, right?"}

{"Noooo..."} Akane said with slow sarcasm. {"If you thinks someone's interesting, and they aren't with someone else, there's nothing stopping you from asking them out. How do you think Koyuki and I got together?"}

{"That's... I have no idea how people do that stuff!"}

{"Look, you're the one you said you wanted to try dating before you left."}

{"That was before I was in a place I could actually try anything!"} Ranma protested with an aggrieved tone.

{"Really?"} Akane rolled her eyes again. {"Just go up to her and say: 'Hey, Babe. Do you fancy a pizza?'"}

{"Are you serious? You can't be serious,"} Ranma replied flatly.

{"I don't know... it seems like a pretty western thing to say,"} Akane teased. {"Try it and let me know what happens."}

{"Are you channeling Nabiki? No!"}

{"OK, OK,"} Akane relented. {"You're right. That's just a long-running joke in the band about the worst pickup line. Don't actually use it. But now you gotta think: what are you going to do?"}

{"I don't know... I'll figure it out later. Like next year."}

{"Wimp."}

{"Hey!"}

{"Am I wrong? Are you planning to do anything any time soon?"} Her only answer was silence. {"You know, you were a lot more confident about pickup lines during the Mirror Clone thing."}

{"That was just because Clone-Chan was so pathetic, I had to stop her from embarrassing me. Besides, we were both..."} he trailed off with a sudden sense of dread. {"Oh come on...!"}

{"What?"}

{"The only way I know how to get a date is as a girl?!"}

Akane let out a brief peal of laughter before clapping her hand over he mouth. Nervously, she lowered herself to hang upside down by her knees to peer at the house as best she could through the shoji doors. Not seeing any signs of a reaction, she did a vertical sit-up to get back to her original position. {"I guess it is. That's hilarious."}

{"Oh thanks awfully,"} Ranma grumbled. {"It's just easier for girls."}

{"Ahem."}

{"You know it's true! It's harder to stop getting requests for dates than it is to get them when you're a girl! Remember the Hentai Horde?"}

{"True. But it's also true all those idiots actually did manage to ask me out without chickening out."}

{"And none of them had a chance! I'm supposed to copy them now?"} Ranma asked incredulously.

{"Heh. Good point. Guess you're on your own, then."}

{"Great."}

{"So Gorgeous Natalie showed up and you sat there like a dummy, huh?"} Akane smirked to herself.

{"No... actually..."} Ranma brightened. {"I actually spoke first. I called out the forms I saw in her movements. She was pretty surprised."}

{"Still hopeless without martial arts,"} Akane sighed. {"Still, that's something, at least."}

{"Yeah, we sparred a bit, too!"}

{"That's nice... wait. How did that happen? I thought she was there to drop off paperwork or something?"} Akane asked in confusion.

{"How did that happen?"} Ranma parroted, sounding confused himself. {"Oh right... Tony talked her into it somehow. Told me to give her a lesson then said 'happy birthday.'"}

{"That was... nice of him?"} Akane wasn't too sure how she felt about that. On one hand, the woman was treated as a present. On the other, it was for the sake of setting up a martial arts spar where the woman could demonstrate her skills. Considering it was to the benefit of her clueless ex-fiance, she decided to move on without objection. {"How did she do?"}

{"Eh... decent,"} Ranma judged. {"Wasn't a long spar. She didn't have the power you did even back when we first met. Her reactions were OK, and her technique was solid, if uninspired. But I got the impression she could be tricky if she wanted. Like, you'd beat her cleanly in a first spar, but she might surprise you in the second."}

{"Huh."} Akane thought over the report for a bit. {"Maybe we'll get a chance to try that out sometime. Sounds like you had some fun. At least you weren't an arrogant jerk to her."}

There was a significant silence.

{"You did remember all the stuff we told you about acting like a civilized person, right?"} Akane asked warningly. {"Me and Koyuki and Oshi-San and everybody?"}

{"Uh... I... might have taunted her... a bit."}

{"Ranma..."}

{"Just a little bit! And it was in Japanese so she wouldn't understand!"} There was a pregnant pause. {"I just... didn't know she understands Japanese... so... whoops?"}

{"Ranma..."} Akane's voice held disappointment still, but some rueful amusement could be heard too.

{"I also might have... kept my hands behind my back the whole time to show off,"} Ranma confessed. {"And invented some no-hands judo moves on the spot."}

{"Ranma..."}

{"She didn't seem mad! At the end of the spar, anyway! I mean..."} he sighed helplessly. {"She seemed impressed? I think? I hope?"}

{"Ranma..."}

{"I'm sorry, OK? I just got in too good a mood and didn't think about it!"}

{"You don't need to say that to me..."} Akane told him leadingly.

{"No. I know. I'll apologize to Natalie if I see her again,"} Ranma sighed. {"Crap."}

Akane chuckled. {"Same old Ranma."}

{"I am getting better. It was just a bit of a backslide!"}

{"Uh-huh. Keep working on it."}

{"I will! I will! I..."} Ranma was cut off by a tone that sounded out over their call. {"Lucky! No... I mean... 'too bad.' Tony is calling me so I need to hang up."}

{"Ranma..."}

{"Gotta go! Talk to you later! Bye!"}

{"Bye,"} Akane answered back, but only after he had disconnected. She shook her head for a bit, then snickered. "Baaaka," she murmured. Putting her phone away, she started retracing her steps to sneak back into her room. {"A lingerie-modeling-paralegal-kenkyu-sei? Yeesh... sounds like something out of a manga... or the typical sort that idiot runs into. Definitely sounds interesting... and strange. I hope he meets her again... gods know the only chance in hell he's got is with strange and interesting,"} she concluded ruefully.

############

Nineteen hours later, and thousands of miles away, a certain interesting woman was experiencing interesting times.

{"Excuse me, you are Stark's representative, are you not?"} the demand was spoken in upper-class French with all the friendliness of a Siberian winter. {"There are several concerns that must be addressed as a result of your employer's... requests."}

Outwardly, Natasha blinked in nervous innocence at the ultimatum, but within she was impressed at how the other woman projected 'aggravated hardass' so thoroughly that the other flacks and lackeys in the reception area carefully looked away to leave her to her fate. {"Yes, that is correct. I am here to facilitate Mr. Stark's participation in this event. I'm certain I can help you with any matter you have questions about."}

{"Yes, you will,"} was the astringent reply. {"You will follow me now."} The tall, stone-faced brunette then turned on her spiked heel and strode off with firmly clacking footsteps. Smiling apologetically, 'Natalie' trailed after her. The two women went into a small conference room, and the blue-eyed brunette locked the door behind them with a loud click. She then pulled a round device out of her briefcase, set it against the door and twisted the center to lock it in place. A white-noise generator started automatically once the device was set to adhere to the fine-grained wood. "Clear," she stated, then turned and sat at the table, waving her subordinate into a chair as well.

"Deputy Director Hill," Natasha greeted the familiar woman with a quiet tone despite the high-tech countermeasure to eavesdropping. "I wouldn't have expected you to show up for an interim report." She took a fancy-looking, fully functional pen out of her purse and pushed it across the table. "Especially for just a pickup." The pen contained a carefully concealed chip that stored the encrypted files she had created. The laptop used to create the files had been wiped and restored to an innocuous default state. "I thought Fury was of the opinion this op was too top-heavy as it was." Romanova was both annoyed and concerned that she was sitting at yet another conference table in front of yet another high executive for the second time in as many days. The people on her side of things at SHIELD simply didn't do meetings that often unless something was seriously wrong.

"Not anymore," Maria Hill told her while accepting the pen and disassembling it to extract the memory chip. The redhead raised an eyebrow at her as Hill immediately set out her own portable computer to read the data instead of waiting to get to a secure facility. "Heat is coming down from upstairs because of Stark's antics. There's also a lot of backfield motion going on," she said in partial explanation of her impatience.

The redhead raised her other eyebrow at the Americanism. It did not take long for her to make an interpretation of the oblique comment, however. It seemed she was right about something being seriously wrong. Not wrong in a blood and explosions kind of way... she'd be less perturbed if it were... but wrong as in political. "Senator Stern pitched a shit-fit after the hearing, didn't he?"

"Yes, yes he did. Damned if I know why that man's word counts with Secretary Pierce and the council as much as it does, but it does. Between that and the addition of Saotome to the mix, this operation is getting increasingly volatile. Fury want's a rock-solid handle on this situation ASAP. So this is not just a hand off." The executive activated an audio recording app on her computer and made a beckoning gesture at Natasha. "We want a preliminary assessment. You spent the day with Saotome, I hope you got something."

"Where it concerns Saotome? I got mounds," Natasha claimed emphatically. "Absolutely no resistance at all when it comes to giving away intell. The only real limit was how fast we could talk... no joke."

"Excellent." Hill nodded in such a way that it was clear to Natasha that she was feeling some relief. "I've bought us quite a bit of time for a review with my act out there. Stark is pretty notorious in these circles, so they'll happily stay away. So run me through your day... step-by-step."

"Yes, ma'am."

############

Natasha spent a sleepless night, using the conditioning from the Red Room and some SHIELD-exclusive pills to keep going without risking an obvious show of fatigue the next day. She reviewed Saotome's file and did additional research for more details. She tapped contacts of her own in addition to those provided by her employers. She monitored communications and the camera feeds from the suddenly up-rated surveillance on Stark's mansion, Hogan's apartment, Potts's condominium, and Saotome's new quarters. She planned, revised, discarded and planned anew scheme after contingency after stratagem to make sure she was in close contact with her objectives as soon as possible.

Soon after 6 AM she finished touching up the forgery of a back-story for her 'good friend' who would 'purely by happenstance' turn out be a neighbor of the martial artist, and who she would 'luckily visit' at an opportune time to 'accidentally' encounter Saotome and get some unmonitored face-time with her. It was mere seconds after she was done that hours of preparations became largely moot. Her cover's phone rang, and she instantly picked out the identity of the 'unlisted' caller from her monitoring program before the first chime could finish.

Rather than answer immediately, she waited a precisely calculated amount of time, accepting the call in the middle of the third ring. Artfully thumping her hand and the phone on her desk to simulate the noise of fumbling, she then brought it up to her ear and feigned a drowsy: "H'llo?"

"Hello, Rushman-Natalie-Rushman? Mind if I call you Natalie?" Tony Stark's exaggeratedly chipper voice greeted her.

"Mr. Stark," she replied slowly with a groggy, husky rasp, pretending to be waking up and confused. "It's... how can I help you, sir?"

"I didn't call you too early, did I?" the wealthy playboy asked insincerely.

"No, of course not, sir," she answered with a polite, but deliberately unconvincing tone.

"Good, good," he shamelessly accepted the thin excuse to ignore any inconvenience on her part. "Look, how would you like a much better job than the one you have now? It'd be...like triple your current pay. Full access to the mansion. Lots of travel. Do you have a passport?" he rambled on.

"Err... yes, sir. I have a passport. Mmmmnnn," she moaned gently as if she were stretching, setting her hook. "I needed one for the modeling job I used to have," with a hint of a yawn, she reminded him of one of the many appealing aspects that had been added to her cover identity.

"Oh yeah... lingerie model," the billionaire miscreant was practically panting as he remembered the photos he had seen. "So you're hired! Can you start soon? Today?"

"I... haven't..." she responded with a perplexed tone. "What job do you want me to do? I haven't agreed to anything yet."

"Oh, come on," Stark sighed impatiently. "You'll be my new assistant. Like Pepper used to be until she became my CEO. Actually, you'll be mine and Ranma's assistant at first. You got along well with Ranma, right?"

"I did. She's a remarkable young woman," she said, acting as if her resistance was being worn down. "You said three times my current salary?"

"That's right... and a ten-thousand buck bonus if you can get over to Ranma's new place to get started by seven," he wheedled.

"Uh... seven? I..." the Black Widow was a professional, so she feigned a little hesitation, and she most certainly did not pump her fist in triumph as she was handed her mission goal on a silver platter. "I... can do that. What is her address?"

"JARVIS is uploading it to your phone... plus some apps that'll help," the inventor casually announced his illegal hacking. It was a very good thing her cover's phone was carefully sanitized of anything incriminating. "Just follow the map."

"Yes, sir," she agreed, taking off her t-shirt purely for the sound effects of cloth rustling across skin. "I'm getting ready now, then I'll head over."

"Outstanding! I should be able to talk to you again later today! See ya!" He hung up as soon as he'd said his piece.

"Well..." Natasha muttered as she sent an update to the SHIELD system, "...that happened." Then she set to efficiently canceling several of the actions she had spent the last few hours planning and ordering. One might think violence and death were what loomed large in the life of a SHIELD agent... and they did... but far more prevalent was tedium and irony. Not that she'd ever complain about things suddenly getting easy.

############

"So at least that part of the plan worked," Hill commented idly.

"Better than I thought it would, even after I was hired," Natasha mentioned. "Especially the circumstances I was hired under."

What do you mean?"

"Well..."

############

A minute before seven, Ranma opened the main door of her new home before the older redhead could ring the bell. "Ohaiyo, Natalie," she greeted happily as she gave the visitor a once-over in her dark green skirt-and-blazer ensemble, then frowned as she took in the woman's subtly and artfully disheveled appearance. "Sumimasen... did Tony make you come too soon?"

"No, it's... what are you wearing?" the agent asked in lieu of a greeting.

"This?" With a creak of strained metal, the martial artist reached up and touched what would have looked like red sport sunglasses if it weren't for all the electronic additions. "Tony called it a 'Stark HUD.' Is computer you wear on face... it is a computer you wear on your face," she corrected herself. "JARVIS can talk to me with it. Lets me read fast while training and helps with learning English better."

"Not that. That," Natasha nodded toward her new charge's body. Over a black bodysuit, covering her arms, legs, and torso were a series of steel bands and springs that looked like they came off the suspensions of heavy-duty trucks.

"Resistance suit," Ranma answered blandly. "Helps for training, too. See?" She flexed her arm with a groan of high-test metal. "Not too sure it will help much, but it nice of Tony to make it for me. It was nice, I mean." She stepped back and made a welcoming gesture. "Want to come in?" A concerned frown formed on her face. "Or go home again because of tired... you're tired?"

"No, it's no problem." Suiting action to words, Natasha stepped inside. Noticing that her host was following Japanese traditions, she took off her pumps and stepped into the house slippers provided. Ranma shrugged, but also smiled at the polite gesture. "Good morning, Ranma," the spy finally said. "Nice place. Is it yours?"

"Uh... not really?" Ranma scrunched her nose in a bit of confusion. "Tony owns the place. I'm supposed to live here and pay rent, but they haven't told me how much I'm supposed to pay, or when."

"He owns it? A spare empty house?"

"I guess so?"

"In this market? Holy crap!" For the sake of her assumed identity, Natasha pretended to be as shocked as a regular civilian would be at the idea of an unused house in the expensive Malibu region. However, she actually knew the amount of money and coercion that had gone into acquiring, emptying out, and refitting the house for the martial artist's use from the records SHIELD had hacked.

"Is that weird?" Ranma asked innocently, making Natasha's performance a bit redundant.

Still, she was a professional, and she did not break character. Shaking her head helplessly, she slowly answered: "I guess not... for Tony Stark, anyway. Wow." With a final shake of her head, she changed subjects. "Do you know what I'll be doing today?"

The Neriman escapee gave Natasha a wide-eyed look that made it very hard to view her as the calamitous threat her boss had described. "Shimatta! Tony not say... did not say?"

Reminded by the Japanese expletive, Natasha switched to that language. {"No, he did not. He just said I would be your assistant for at least part of the day."}

"Actually, speak English, please," Ranma requested. "Part of the job is English practice."

"OK, I can do that easily enough. What else though?"

"Can we go downstairs?" Ranma asked. "Was training... 'I was training...'" she amended herself. "I need all the training I can get without people to fight. I'll tell you and answer questions while I work."

"Certainly," the operative smiled winsomely.

"Thanks," the close-quarter-combat master nodded in appreciation and led the way to the stairs. "Like I said, before, JARVIS is improving my English. I just need more reasons to talk more about different stuff, so you talking with me will help if that's OK."

"I understand. It is no problem at all. I'm sure I can keep coming up with conversation topics," Natasha replied as she casually looked around. The new residence was a very long, but relatively narrow detached townhouse with a basement and two above-ground floors. The furniture was sparse, yet tasteful, and followed a vaguely Asian motif, but there was nothing in the way of decorations on the walls yet. The agent had memorized the floor-plans the night before, of course, and knew where all rooms, doors, and windows were located.

"So... how do I say this?" Ranma went on with a faintly embarrassed tone. "Your real job today is to stay out of sight."

"What?"

"Tony... wanted to hire you, but Pepper didn't. I'm really sorry about this." The Japanese expatriate turned and gave a shallow bow in mid-step. "Idea is, you work long enough that it wrong... would be wrong... to fire you. Or maybe you work for me, but really for Tony? Either way, if you've been doing an actual job for a while, then Pepper might not fire you so easy. Easily."

"I see." She allowed a moment of uncomfortable silence before saying: "Thank you for warning me. I'll just have to be good at my new job so I can keep it."

The petite teenager winced and apologized again: "Sorry."

"I'm used to it," 'Natalie' confided. "My looks may give me opportunities, but there are plenty of people who look down on me or view me as a problem because of those same looks. As a remarkably beautiful girl, you can understand, I'm sure."

Ranma was quiet and thoughtful for a bit. Blushing too, a little, at the compliment. "Yeah, I get that," she said with a sense of understatement. She lead the way down the stairs with a chorus of protesting steel. "There's a lot of stuff that Tony will want you to do for him, but he can get into that with you himself. Since you're stuck with me for lot... a lot of today, I guess I need normal lessons."

"Normal lessons in what?" Natasha asked as she cast her gaze around the basement. There was evidence of recent removal of walls from the ten-foot high space, and horizontal steel beams along the unfinished ceiling had taken over the task of load bearing. There was a garage door at the back, with a side door beside it, but it seemed no vehicle was planned to be stored there as a wooden practice post stood where a car would be. There were also panels along the walls and ceiling that must have been sound-dampening based on the deadened echos. Racks of melee weapons, chains, ropes, and an assortment of metal oddments that confused her a little, including an anvil, were lined up against one wall. Next to the opposite wall were a stack of folded floor pads. In the clear area, a rope was strung between two free-standing posts for some reason. There were also plenty of weights and other exercise equipment, but those seemed a bit more conventional than what the Ki-adept would use. She also noticed a portable massage bed was collapsed and leaning against the wall near the front of the building where there was a tiled section of floor leading to a door-less entryway that made a sharp bend to conceal the contents of the room. A shower if the builder's plans were accurate.

"Uh... said that wrong," Ranma waved her hand beside her head in a little frustration. "I need lessons in being normal. I've been getting better... a lot better... at being around normal people for half a year... Ah!" She paused and looked chagrined. "Sumimasen!" She bowed abruptly to her guest with a chorus of squeaks and groans from her resistance suit. "Sorry, I forgot to say sorry for yesterday! For the spar! I was not supposed to taunt people or show off like that anymore! Sorry!" she continued to bow repeatedly.

Waving both her hands, Natasha tried to reassure the younger woman. "No, no... it's OK! I didn't think anything of it! It seemed more like teasing to me, really!" That wasn't quite true. At the time, she had been genuinely incensed at the goading, though in hindsight Ranma's commentary should not have bothered her all that much. Still, there was no advantage in holding or pretending to hold a grudge. "As for showing off, that's totally fine when you do impressive stuff like that. Even if it is mostly just a form of exercise for me, I did continue with martial arts for a reason, and seeing a high-level demonstration was a treat." Ranma nodded at that as if it wasn't a massive understatement of the SHIELD operative's skills. "Though I can understand how you want to do better. So you want lessons in etiquette?"

"Uh... yeah... that too. But also more than that. In Japan, I am 'emancipated minor.' In America, I am adult! Two years early!" Ranma shrugged with a wide-eyed look to show her alarm. "I've never had my own place or a real job before. Hogan-San will be teaching me things about being a bodyguard... not the fighting, 'cause I'm way better at that," she boasted. "But he'll teach what to do each day and stuff for the job. Still, I hear people say things like insurance and bank accounts and taxes and some four-something-with-a-letter... 401K... and other stuff, and I see I have no idea what normal people with jobs do. Hell, I haven't even had a roof over my head for maybe half my life."

"OK..." Natasha said slowly, pretending she hadn't known much of this already. "I'm having a little trouble understanding the context of this. Were you lost in the wilderness or something? What happened?"

"Being like this happened." Ranma took a stance and brought up her Ki-aura into the visible spectrum. 'Natalie' froze in seeming shock and it promptly winked out again. "This is my Ki. The Ki of a master. You saw a bit of it yesterday, but I'm the greatest martial artist you'll ever meet... probably. If I'm not the best around... period... then I am damn close," she couldn't help but brag for the attractive woman. "I'm sure good enough to use my Ki as a weapon and tool. Thing is... getting that good has a cost. I didn't grow up like you or other regular people did. So there's all kinds of things that seem everyday to you, and I don't have a clue."

As it happened, though Natasha had no intention of revealing it, she had not been raised like a civilian either. So she understood quite well how alienated someone like Ranma could be. Unlike what had been done with the Asian girl, however, a thorough understanding of life experience Natasha had missed had been forcibly etched into her mind. The Red Room had specifically trained its 'students' in soft skills to meld seamlessly into regular society with all the brutal efficiency of its other lessons.

Ranma continued to explain: "I spent time in the wilderness, but I wasn't lost. We'd be around other people too, but they were all martial artists or monks or other people who wouldn't know a regular salaryman way of living if it jumped up and spin-kicked them in the face."

"Could you do that again? With the aura?" Natasha gave an impressed whistle as Ranma's Ki lit up the room again. "That's really Ki?" She got a earnest nod in answer. "I've heard of Ki from my time in Asia, but I always thought of it more as a visualization aid. I've seen some things that really stretched the imagination, but nothing like that."

"Heh," Ranma scoffed. "That's because you only learned from scrubs, like that Iga guy. I've seen lots of people bring up battle auras." Then she grimaced. "That's part of the problem. I'm from places where that stuff is common, but you've never seen those places."

"That's a good point. OK, I think I'm getting a better idea," the older woman hesitantly nodded. "So you wouldn't know how to pay a bill, or hire repair people, or write a check, or interact with coworkers, or anything like that, right?" Her training as an agent gave her a good memory, and she clearly recalled many of the things that had seemed strange to her after she had joined SHIELD six years previously.

"Uh... no," despite her requesting it, Ranma blinked in impressed surprise that Natasha had come up with examples of things that were so foreign to the Ki-adept's prior life so readily. "Yeah! Yeah, exactly! Pretty sure there's a lot more like that too, but I don't even know what to ask!"

"OK... alright..." Natasha looked thoughtful. "I think since you need to practice speaking, you should tell me a little bit about this life you've led so I can get an idea of what to cover. Just whatever you feel comfortable sharing," she hastened to add. Deep inside, she was jumping up and down in glee. Promises of limiting her nosiness aside... limits which wouldn't last long once she worked her wiles... this was exactly the alibi she needed to probe Ranma's psychology. "We can then spend the day doing 'normal' things like inspecting the house so I can show you stuff you need to know, go shopping, go to a restaurant, or things like that. I'll tell you about what my day-to-day life's like while we do that."

Ranma shrugged at the voiced plan. "Sounds like that would work. I'll tell you about my early training while actually training." She gestured toward the open area, then pointed at her HUD. "I'll be reading too, so yell at me if I lose track of what we're saying."

Natasha's eyebrows furrowed. "I should point out that normally that it would be rather rude to read while you have a visitor. Why will you be doing that?"

"Part of training," the martial artist said apologetically. "Back in day... back in the day, I just trained my body... or, well, with the Art, you can't really say it isn't partly mental too... but I concentrated on body... my body. Hokkusu-Sensei made me add book-learning to my routine, and my Ki got a lot stronger. Like... ridiculously stronger! Kind of like I'd been getting my footwork wrong for years and suddenly got it right. Sensei said a strong mind and a strong body makes a martial artist more strong than just the two added together. Pushing my brain to work harder makes me better."

"Interesting," the spy commented, thinking just those few sentences would justify her munificent pay from SHIELD once she added them to Saotome's profile.

############

"I see what you meant by the plan working better than expected," Maria smirked with professional satisfaction. "Since they were trying to hide you from Potts, you were put in close proximity to Saotome with an engraved invitation to snoop into his past. And you're right, learning so important a secret of this 'Ki' stuff was definitely worth putting you on this case. Though you can expect high-level eyes on this for the rest of your assignment too, as a result."

"Joy," Natasha deadpanned. She was not worried the other woman would take offense, she had been a field agent in the past and could sympathize with the aggravation of officious elbow-jogging. "Though I should point out that I got the impression that the mental aspect of Ki training doesn't seem to be a secret. Hell, I've been told similar things about Ki by martial arts senseis in the past, I just discounted it as a metaphor or a mnemonic for an elevated mindset. There are real secrets in that world according to what I picked up from Saotome: sealed schools and forbidden moves and suchlike. However, cultivating Ki through training the mind and body is really just regarded as entry-level info to be distributed to any who'll listen. Not classified in the least."

"Is that right?" Hill had a slightly suspicious frown. "It is true I've heard some of the same things, but I for one mostly ignored it as new-age nonsense. If it's given away that freely, could it be a red herring? Or maybe the whole Ki leading to superpowers thing is bunk after all?"

"Are you saying Saotome and the others didn't wreck some mountains?" Natasha gave her superior an arch look.

"No, I mean what if it's some innate power after all, and they just attributed it to Ki because they didn't know any better? Just because we didn't recognize some kind of genetic trait or other power-up in Saotome's samples that's responsible for his abilities doesn't mean there isn't one," Maria pointed out reasonably.

Natasha tilted her head and thought about it. "You have a point, I guess, but I think there is something real to this. Inborn abilities like we see with enhanced people... Inhumans and the like... tend to be pretty static. Somebody might be born with the ability to boil a cup of water by looking at it, and they might be able to work their way up to boiling a tank of water or something with practice, but they don't suddenly start making bits of paper float around in the air too. I, however, watched Saotome develop a new ability right in front of my eyes. Let me tell you how it went..."

############

"Other reason to study? I'll get fired if I don't work on my... what was it again? My G.E.D.," Ranma added sheepishly.

"Ah," Natasha said knowingly. "Do you need help with that too?"

"Don't think so," the newly minted adult shook her head as she moved out to a clear area. "JARVIS's got that covered. Kinda looking forward to him getting wired up in the house. The glasses are nice for reading at nearly full speed, but it's a little annoying that they are the only way to speak with him out here." Without further ado, she flickered into a high-speed kata, causing her resistance suit to nearly scream in protest at the preternaturally swift movements.

"STOP!" the visitor cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled.

Ranma immediately halted with a confused look. "What?"

"Sorry," 'Natalie' shook her head. "I just got a bad vision of one of those bits of metal breaking off under strain and going flying though something delicate. Like me."

"Oh no," Ranma held out a reassuring hand. "I'd catch it before that happened. But you've got a point. Better not break it in the first place. Hmm... guess I'll use something like the Iron-Cloth technique to hold it together. Iron-Iron technique, I guess," she chuckled a bit.

"How ironic," the older woman commented dryly. The teen shot her a befuddled look before putting a hand to her ear. She then laughed softly again. Presumably, Stark's computer had explained the pun. "Can you... I'm not sure if this is possible... but can you do something about the noise too?"

Ranma cocked her head in contemplation. "Um... I guess I can try shifting the sound into something else. Heat would be easy, but bad... wait... no... heat would be good. Some Soul of Ice to suck in the heat... yeah. I'll have to keep the Iron-Iron technique going at the same time..." She started bending her arm, the creaking steadily quieting with each flex. She stared intently at her limb as she continued. In a matter of barely a minute, Natasha stopped hearing anything from the resistance suit even as Ranma sped up her movements, but the Ki-adept kept going longer until she suddenly stopped and nodded in satisfaction.

"Yoshi..." the super-powered fighter said with a pleased tone. "Let's do this." With that, she slowly started a kata from what looked a lot like Taichichuan to the SHIELD agent. The deliberate speed soon picked up the pace, though it remained just as graceful. Occasional squeaks and groans could be heard from the steel harness, but Ranma compensated in fractions of a second while continuing to accelerate. Distractedly, she announced: "This is pretty hard!" Before Natasha could apologize for her request, the dancing Ki-adept went on: "Thanks! This is really good training!"

############

"Hold it!" the deputy director ordered.

"Yes?" Natasha replied with a blandly pleasant expression.

"Did you actually help make the over-powered potential security threat become even more over-powered?" The senior agent's criticism did not seem too serious, but there was a touch of exasperation.

"Eh... possibly, but more likely that little trick would have been discovered without my input. After her resistance suit broke and needed to be replaced, if nothing else."

"I suppose that's likely true," Hill agreed after thinking it over.

"I think the more significant thing was how she transferred one type of energy into another," Natasha pointed out. "Or at least that's the impression I got. I wanted to check with some science types before asking her more about that."

"I noticed that too." Combat veteran or not, Maria Hill was also well educated in scientific and engineering matters, and had been the supervisor of many such projects for SHIELD. "Both sound and heat are effectively mechanical energy, so maybe redirecting such energy is Saotome's real power. It would explain a lot about the things he is known to have done."

"Again, that sounds plausible," Natasha conceded. "However, there's more she claimed she could do with Ki that I don't think would match that theory."

############

Natasha said: "I didn't expect to help with the martial-arts side of things, but I am glad to be of assistance."

"Right... hang on a sec... JARVIS, could ya slow down the reader a bit? A bit more? Er.." sounding mortified, Ranma requested again: "A bit more? There. Shit." She sighed in a small amount of annoyance. "OK, now we can talk."

"What's the problem?"

"Too much stuff to do at once. Had trouble with focus." The small redhead's voice showed a bit of strain as she spoke. "Slowed down study text... my study text... so I could concentrate on everything properly. If my talk gets... shimatta... if my speech gets too broken up, that is the reason."

Natasha narrowed her eyes as she peered through Ranma's visor as best she could while the martial artist kept moving. She could see the teen's eyes were rapidly scanning from side to side at a rate that should have made it impossible for her to see anything but a blur, but evidently that was not the case. "You're really multitasking?"

"'Multitasking'?" Ranma quoted, not quite sure of the meaning, though the NLUI speaking in her ear provided a quick definition. "Uh... yeah... I guess that's the word for it. I told you I would."

"You know that true, conscious multitasking is supposedly impossible in humans, right? That we really can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and so-called multitasking is just switching back and forth between things a bunch of times. A lot of productivity experts at the places I've worked warn against it because it makes people less efficient in the long run." Natasha would know. Her 'masters' in the Red Room worked around the limitation by thoroughly indoctrinating all sorts of Pavlovian behaviors into the children they shaped into assassins. All so they could respond unconsciously to perform multiple actions without relying on their front-brains. It might seem like multitasking, and it effectively was, but it wasn't real-time multiple-focus cogitation like Ranma seemed to be claiming.

"Really? Don't know about those experts, then. They're definitely not martial-artists. Been doing 'multitasking' for years. Kinda need to if your making up a new technique in the middle of a fight." Ranma gave a scoffing laugh. "Kuso... the Hiryu Shoten Ha's a stone bitch to keep track of everything as it is... no way I could do it if I was stuck concentrating on one thing at a time. Multitasking's like the third or fourth thing you learn to do with Ki."

"Well, maybe I was wrong," 'Natalie' shrugged it off, concealing how important she regarded that particular datum both from a standpoint of hazard assessment as well as psychological profiling. Working from an the sort of intuitive leap that made her a premier agent, she added: "Must be one of those 'enlightenment' things I've heard senseis talk about. Maybe I should have paid that part more attention."

"Enlightenment?" Ranma repeated thoughtfully as she rolled backward and flipped back to her feet. "I guess you can say that. Gotta have... got to have a serene, steady mind to do it right. Strong emotions can throw off the split-mind technique. Anger fucks it right up. Sure, there's stuff you can do by building up strong feelings, like the Shishi Hokodan uses depression or how my Moko Takabisha used to need confidence, but calm Ki can do way much more."

############

"Interesting," Maria murmured. "Very interesting."

"Isn't it? The multiprocessing thing sounds dead useful, if she is correct about it. I think we can count on Stark to test that part... if he hasn't already done so. We'll check his notes once we find them, I'm sure. As for the serene mind bit, it struck me that it's like the opposite of Banner," Romanova pointed out. "Becoming more reasonable in order to become stronger. Another thing to note is you can't attribute these mental effects to mechanical energy like before, so it's either one or more completely separate inherent powers, or it really is Ki that accounts for everything. I can't think of anything conventional that ties everything all together, which is why I wanted a consult with the lab-boys. Until I hear different, I'm treating Ki as real."

"Assuming everything Saotome claimed was all true, of course," Hill reflexively played Devil's Advocate.

"It is probably safe to assume it was all true. In her view, anyway. It was pretty easy to pick up the tells when she tried to conceal anything and I doubt she was mistaken about her own capabilities. Nor is it likely to be an attempt to trick me because I'm an agent. The only way that would be the case would be if Stark somehow figured out what we were doing and coached a neophyte teenager into running a counter-intelligence op on us inside a day." Natasha shrugged. "In our business, we can't completely dismiss the possibility... but the likelihood...?"

"Right. Very low probability indeed. OK," the deputy director tapped the table a couple of times with her index finger. "So assuming it is true, then if Saotome is motivated to be more rational, he won't be as subject to radicalization. Assuming he actually is becoming more rational instead of just aspiring to it."

"Having immediate feedback in terms of measurable results... or measurable to her, anyway... would make that dynamic relatively easy to track. Most people don't have any kind of mental measuring stick, after all. Add some guidance and therapy, and we're pretty close to an ideal situation. Note that Potts made therapy a condition of employment, so I won't have to do a single thing to make that happen. Also note they haven't found a therapist yet, so we can put a subtle thumb on that scale to guide their pick. Still, it wouldn't hurt at all for me to do what I can to encourage the rationality trend... within the constraints of my cover, of course."

Hill gave her a searching look. "Even if it makes him stronger?"

"One of the first things Fury said to me about Saotome was that she's going to get stronger. That it's inevitable," Natasha said soberly. "I'm inclined to agree with the highest confidence already. The only alternative is death and I'll tell you straight up as your best assassin that I don't think we can or should arrange that right now. Directing her into a more beneficial channel would serve far better. In fact, I would encourage you to make that an order."

"You sound like you have a specific concern," her superior prompted.

"Not really a specific concern," Natasha shook her head, "it's more ambiguous than that. I was able to get a fairly thorough recitation of Saotome's training history without her really noticing. Not only was her mind distracted by her training regimen, but I pulled the old..." she leaned in with big, dewy eyes and her voice went throatily seductive, "'...I'm so curious about every little thing about you...' act. Which, not to sound too conceited, worked pretty damn well." She dropped her pose and smirked knowingly. Hill huffed a sardonic laugh to acknowledge the point.

At a gesture from her superior, Natasha continued: "Anyway, she held back some things which were likely even worse to avoid disturbing me, but even the things she did speak of reminded me of what Director Fury was worried about... stuff that would have freaked a regular civvie right the hell out. 'Demented Nietzschean experiment in learn-or-die scenarios' is what he called it, and that was largely accurate. See my report under the section for potential complications." She waved at the computer, and her boss opened the relevant section.

"Hmm..." Hill hummed to herself as she looked through the highlights. "Playing bait for wolves? That looks rather unpleasant." Of course, she wasn't particularly squeamish, and had seen far worse things, but she could see how the teaching methods of one Genma Saotome could be a problem.

"It did remind me a bit of the Red Room," Natasha commented darkly. "A bit, anyway. Far less mind games in exchange for far more physical brutality. Or possibly not if you count the mother's deal with the suicide contract. Though on second thought, the months of occasional contact with her don't count for much compared with the years of constant contact with the father. That said, Saotome didn't actually seem too bothered by either of the parents' antics."

"Oh?"

"There was definitely some griping and sarcasm, but that was it." She set her elbows on the table and propped her chin with her fists as she thought things out. "If Saotome were an ordinary, everyday sort of person, several of those things on the list would result in lifelong trauma. On the other hand, none of those things had a lasting physical effect save to improve her abilities... very different from how it would have gone for a normal kid. So she therefore has a very different point of view as a result. She definitely has no sense of victimization or resentment at the world at large or even at anyone in particular. She also does not fit into the down-trodden, convinced-they-deserved-it mold that abuse victims often develop. She went through what she went through, learned what she could from it, accepted it, and moved on. If she were a high-level SHIELD agent, it would be admirable, but not all that exceptional."

Maria examined her subordinate and observed: "It sounds like you are trying to convince yourself of something. Still working it out?"

"Yes, I suppose I am," Natasha admitted. "It is early days, yet. I went into this with Fury's concerns at the forefront of my mind. I'm not one to ignore his instincts, and on paper it looks like those instincts have a lot of validity, but I was not getting any kind of unstable vibe at all. If it weren't for the background packet and the history I coaxed her into telling me, I would have thought the Director was barking up the wrong tree. And the idea of Fury ever barking up the wrong tree is..."

"It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. That is why we send in agents, to get an grounds-eye view of things. Sometimes that changes our understanding by a large margin," Maria pointed out. "And it sounds like the reality of the situation isn't too far off from Coulson's assessment, if you think about it. He's also not someone who tends to go barking up the wrong tree any more than the director does."

"True. Very true. Still, I can't help but think that if I were trying to destabilize Saotome like an old Red Room mission, the way she was treated by her parents would be my primary way to get under her skin. Work her over until all those things that she shrugs off now became an excuse to go off the rails. Even if it made her objectively weaker, it would be possible to get her to abandon the path of reason and wallow in destructive and self-destructive emotions." Natasha's jaw tightened as she admitted this.

"If we ordered you to do so, how long do you think it would take for you to do just that?" Hill inquired.

"Noting in advance that it would be a terrible, terrible idea to do it... I'll explain more about why in a bit... I would say... weeks? That's assuming she was in isolation somehow. My gut says that if she had any kind of freedom of movement and access to outside people, it would take months, maybe even years. My assessment is far from complete, so take that with a grain of salt," she concluded.

"Got it. Continue with your report. What happened next?"

"Well, after the first round of training, she cooked me breakfast. Apparently cooking is part of her training too. 'Everything is training' seems to be a credo..."

############

The meal had been surprisingly tasty, especially considering it was made by a bachelor teen. Not only that, but the preparation had been a show to put the cooks at a Japanese steakhouse to shame. Natasha had nursed a cup of tea as she watched ingredients be chopped and diced in flickers of steel in mid-air. For an encore, the martial artist sent the finished meals flying out of the pan to land unerringly on the plates that had been set out on the table without so much as a single misplaced drop of oil. The agent cooed and clapped in appreciation. She also made a point to lean forward and draw in her arms in such a way as to emphasize her cleavage for the eighteen-year-old's viewing pleasure while expressing her amazement. Said young woman ate up the attention and praise, but was still mostly dignified about it. Or as dignified as a young woman could be while visibly struggling not to have her eyes drawn to a certain busty valley.

"That was delicious," Natasha complimented as she stood to help clean up. Ranma blushed a bit, but smiled. "What's the plan for after breakfast?" the SHIELD shadow asked.

"Uh... well..." Ranma rubbed the back of her neck and admitted: "More training, actually?"

"Oh..." 'Natalie' blinked in pretended surprise. In actual fact, she had already observed that Ranma had barely broken a sweat before and was expecting the answer she was given. This time, however, she would advance her plans in other ways. "OK then... I feel somewhat useless just sitting there. Could I borrow some of the exercise equipment? And possibly some work-out clothing?"

Ranma smiled hospitably. "Sure! Wait!" The Ki-adept's expression brightened even more as a thought struck her. "Better idea! I did say I'd teach something. Want to learn?"

"As in martial-arts?" Her host nodded eagerly. "OK. Could it be Capoeira? You mentioned that before, and it sounds interesting from what I know of it," Natasha suggested. It was a bit of an overreach to ask, but she really did want the training, and she was working 'martial-arts dilettante' into her cover's persona.

"Sure! Can actually use those mats for something!" Ranma looked almost delighted. "The room my stuff is in is upstairs, first door on the left. Second drawer of the big... thingie... chest-of-drawers... has more stuff like this." She plucked at her bodysuit. "It holds up pretty well to moving and banging around."

"Uh... I just remembered: I've just seen how you practice, and how... extensive... your standards are," Natasha said with pretended hesitation as if having second thoughts. "You'll go easy on me, right?" As much as she wanted to be trained to the maximum of her capability, that would not serve her mission well, so she would take the excuse to hold it down to the upper limits of a civilian. She'd just pick up the basics of the basics for now and get real training later.

"Oh yeah, of course," the martial artist nodded seriously. "I've got my master's certificate, so I need to teach even totally new students. I'm not like Oyaji. I'll go real easy."

"That would be perfect, then. Go ahead and get started, and I'll catch up soon." Cheerfully, the spy trotted upstairs while her host went down. She entered the indicated room and quickly studied the contents. This too was sparsely furnished, but it did have a king-size bed and end table... though there was a thin futon and a pillow lying on the rug beside it that the Japanese immigrant apparently found more restful. A large backpack leaned against the side of the chest-of-drawers she had been told of, and a oval mirror hung above it. That was all. True, the recent arrival probably hadn't had much time to acquire much else, but she still got the impression that spartan was Ranma's default mode.

She worked fast to rifle through not just the indicated drawer, but the rest of the chest, the backpack, and the closet too, planting a couple of surveillance devices as a matter of course. Everything in the drawers and closet were new, some still with tags on them, and all the old clothing she saw was in the backpack. She got the impression the new clothing had been bought for her and likely at someone else's insistence. For that matter, while there was exactly one new black business suit meant for a male, the vast majority of new items were unisex or unquestionably for a woman. Something she supposed she could expect from Stark. As expected, she found several of the recommended full coverage bodysuits like the one Ranma was currently wearing. She tested them and found they had a lot more stretch than standard Lycra, even though they were thicker. It occurred to her that the bodysuits were a compromise for Saotome's two forms, as they would fit on either.

Her initial plan was to put on one of the form fitting suits to emulate her host. But then she noticed the real find. Crammed in the back of the drawer... where she rather expected the owner had intended to leave it until the end of time... was something that would work oh-so-much better for her plans. It was even in Natasha's favorite colors.

Smirking, she stripped out of her clothes, even her underwear, and laid the discarded garments on Ranma's unused bed. She shimmied into her discovery and checked herself in the mirror. The black spandex top was essentially a sports bra, though noticeably more sheer than normal. The shorts were the same material and stopped right at the top of her thighs. The best part was the piece worn over them. It might be called a leotard... if it covered four or five times more than it did. Instead, it was a harness of stretchy crimson fabric that went from her shoulders and along the sides of her chest to wrap around under her breasts, emphasizing their generous size. More strips formed a very high-cut bottom that passed between her legs and back up as a thin thong that would bring all kinds of positive attention to her backside. All of it stretched, but was still a trifle over-tight on her taller and broader frame... all to the better. The effect was sexy as hell, with only a nod at practicality.

There wasn't a doubt in Natasha's mind that Stark had bought this for his new bodyguard on his own recognizance and she suspected Ranma would be unlikely wear it voluntarily.

############

"Never miss a trick, huh?" Hill interjected with some amusement.

"Never," Romanova smirked. "Especially not when the mark hands you openings nicely tied up in a bow. Probably the most normal thing about Saotome is being a horny teenager."

############

Grabbing her purse with her phones and other items in it, the dangerously attractive woman headed downstairs in her bare feet. When she entered the basement, Ranma was back in her resistance suit, somehow performing maneuvers that to the uninitiated would look like break-dancing, but what the agent recognized were really Capoeira.

That was impressive enough, but the astounding thing was Ranma was doing her kata atop the suspended rope. A rope that was only held up by wooden posts with crossed planks as bases and no sign of being bolted or otherwise secured to the floor. Nothing that should have held up to someone merely pushing a finger down on the center of the rope, much less the entire hundred-pound body of the martial artist wearing more than her own weight in steel. Natasha's eyes were wide open in shock as she slowly descended the rest of the way down the stairs.

Genuinely surprised or not, Natasha did not fail to take in new information. As fast as Ranma was moving, it took her combat trained and Red-Room-enhanced perception to catch the widening of the girl's eyes when they were turned toward the elder redhead. It took far less perception to notice when the karateka went spinning off the rope in a flat tumble. Nor did Natasha miss how Ranma caught the rope between her toes just before she passed out of reach. Yanking herself back in, the tiny powerhouse swung under the rope and then up into the air with a several squeaks of strained steel that faded out halfway through her arc. Gracefully she rotated to land upright on the narrow strand of braided fiber, facing her guest with an incredulous expression. Like it was Natasha who had committed the truly startling action.

"That can't have been the only thing you found in there!" Ranma exclaimed.

Breaking free of her own surprise, 'Natalie' took a pose that came directly from her lingerie-model cover identity. "You don't like it?" she pouted.

"Uh... no! Yes! Err... I do like it, but..."

"Don't worry about it," the alleged assistant laughed as she waved down whatever excuses Ranma was about to offer. "I get it. I bet I know exactly who insisted you have this thing." She pulled at the strap of her top in demonstration and her host's eyes locked on the movement. "If I happen to forget to return this and take it out of here, I doubt either you or he will complain, right? You, because you'll be rid of it. Mr. Stark, because he'd love to see me wearing it."

Ranma puffed out a long breath, blowing away a loose lock of hair from her forehead. "Yeah, you got that right. Both parts."

"So there's no problem. Though I can tell you enjoy looking, too."

"Oh! Um..." shuffling ones feet in embarrassment was not something one expected from a tightrope act, especially when the performer stood as straight and easy as if she were on solid ground as she rubbed the back of her neck. "You can tell that, huh? Sorry."

"Don't be," Natasha shook her head. "I'm rather flattered, actually." And she was. She knew how effective her looks were, she was acquired and groomed at a young age for that very reason. It was merely a banal fact of life that she used to her advantage or otherwise ignored. However, Ranma was in a league of her own in terms of appearance with her elfin features and incredibly fit, yet still voluptuous body. Beyond that, there was just something about her that captivated the beholder... maybe it was the way she moved, or the way she looked at people... or maybe it was a side-effect of having the powerful life-force she claimed. Either way, turning the mysteriously powerful fighter's head did good things for the spy's ego.

"So long as it's look, not touch, right?" Ranma surmised, repeating the rules that had been given to her on the plane. She wasn't sure if it was women Tony hired or American girls in general, but... well... couldn't say they were much more casually open with their bodies than what she was used to... Shan Pu and occasionally Ucchan gave the lie to that. Yet something seemed different about the women she was meeting these days.

"'Look, don't touch' is my usual modus operandi... my usual way of operating," the agent agreed. That, though, was very much a lie. She did what it took to accomplish her mission, without limit, and she had done it since she was thirteen. "Flattered or not, I'm sorry I interrupted your routine. Please continue while I stretch out and get warmed up."

"OK."

The infiltrator stretched out and performed some light exercises while her target continued her impossible exertions. Natasha hoped the fact she had not slept the night before would prove to be a boon to her assignment. She would tire faster, which should help conceal her true physical capacity.

Her hopes proved to be in vain as what followed was the most significant lesson in close-quarters combat that the highly trained agent had ever had in her entire life. It was also precisely calibrated to her level of fitness despite what she tried to project. The failure of her deception aside, she had no regrets considering the training she received.

############

"You seem rather adamant about that," Maria said with some confusion. "What the hell was so special about a martial arts lesson?"

"This is something SHIELD really needs to take note of," Natasha claimed. "I wanted to sandbag to hide my real ability, which didn't work out too well. Though she handled the lesson pretty casually... not like a drill instructor or something... she still showed a sense that she knew exactly what I was capable of. Fortunately, she still doesn't seem to realize I am exceptional. I'm really curious to see what she makes of a special forces soldier."

"I'm a special forces soldier," Maria pointed out. "Or I was, but I've kept up the training."

"Yeah, and you know how you'd fare against me in a fight, right?" Natasha saw her superior flip her palm upward in an approximation of a shrug of agreement. "Right. And I'm regarded as a hobbyist by Saotome. Sorry in advance, but I suspect she'd treat you like a new arrival at boot-camp," Natasha smiled ruefully. "Anyway, the point is, she had a damn good read on me, and as a result I learned as much of Capoeira in two or three hours as I would have during one of those intensive three-day seminars we have for the top-tier agents."

"Really?"

"No joke. I am as confident in my Capoeira now as I was in Krav Maga after I participated in one of the seminars. Obviously it will need some practice and refinement before using it in the field, but I'm set for basics." She blew out an awestruck breath. "I'd love to see what she could teach me over a longer amount of time if I can manage it."

"I'm not getting it," Maria shook her head. "I've been to the seminars. The SHIELD training has plenty of one-on-one instruction, plus multiple people you can spar with, as well as having a chance to compare notes with them to make sure you get the most out of the lessons. It's the most efficient and effective style of training we've been able to come up with after decades of study. It was just the two of you in a basement. What could Saotome have done to top the SHIELD course?"

"One big difference is that the seminars start from zero in terms of teaching techniques. Saotome has a unique way of looking at martial arts that builds on previous knowledge. You know how she picked apart all the forms I knew just be seeing me walk, right?"

"Right, that was impressive. I can think of a few times having that skill would have been useful." Hill shook her head a bit ruefully. "Seeing that someone has some training is one thing, but that whole itemized list Saotome came up with is just uncanny."

"That was just the beginning. She broke down the moves of Capoeira in a way I've never seen before. Then she mixed and matched things I already knew with the new techniques, and boiled down the truly unique parts of the new techniques to the pure essentials that she added to the drill. My own ingrained muscle memory boosted my learning speed as a result. By the time I left, I had a dozen customized katas perfectly memorized that she said would thoroughly ground me in the basics as I kept practicing them." She nodded toward the computer. "I recorded her making demonstration runs of each on my cover's phone for later review, and they are in the profile too."

"Right, I see them," Hill agreed while noting the videos for future reference.

"Apparently that's all a core precept of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu, Saotome's school of martial arts," Natasha explained. "While she was explaining it, she had to switch back to Japanese and she was going on about 'finding the dharma of motion,' or 'stripping away illusions to grasp a deeper truth in a martial artist's movements.' Honestly, I only vaguely understood the metaphors, and that because I know the societal context she works from, but I recorded it all for analysis. The way I'd explain it from what I understood is like this: Saotome's school has managed to render all close-combat maneuvers into something like a computer's machine code, only for the human form." the deputy director looked surprised and thoughtful at the comparison. "Each 'command,' or technique, is made up of several 'code strings' or basic actions. This allows a high degree of flexibility and optimization, even in mid-combat. Calculated optimization for maximum effect. A simplistic example would be combining the upper torso mechanics of Karate with the balance control of Jujitsu and the footwork of Wing Chun into a single punch."

"I recall notes indicating that Saotome is notorious for rapidly picking apart an opponent's style to look for weaknesses," Maria pointed out. "It sounds like this 'body-code' thing would contribute to that. Strikes me as a significant advantage in combat, I'm surprised he revealed it so easily."

Natasha waved her hand dismissively. "Remember she was raised to be a dojo instructor, not a spy. Telling people about this would just be good advertising. Nor is it anywhere near as easy to do as it is to describe. It's like the difference between an educated engineer and a trained technician. The latter knows how to operate equipment, but the former knows how it all works and how to redesign it if needed. Also, like I said, the example of the punch was really simplistic. I get the idea Saotome works on a much deeper level. Like she'd use the flexing of the peroneus tertius muscle as in Chishouken combined with the tensing of the soleus from Kalarippayattu combined with the gluteus maximus usage of... say... Lucha Libre for shits and giggles..." she won a chuckle from her superior officer with that. "I'm making that up as an example, but hopefully you get the idea. Furthermore, it's all teachable and also customizable for each individual. Saotome said herself that while secret techniques would never be taught outside of exceptional circumstances, the fundamentals of the 'body-code' are absolutely fair game for being passed on to students as well as aiding their development." She gave the deputy director a significant look.

"Right," Maria waved in a conceding gesture. "Such a teaching method would only work with experienced students, of course. But then SHIELD doesn't exactly recruit newbies for our combat units."

"Exactly. I'd say ending this operation with the possibility of at the least being able to use Saotome as a contractor seems should be a priority. Her school seems like it's been trying to develop a unified theory of martial arts, which could be a big benefit to our combat-oriented agents. Especially since way more than the body-code is on the table. Ki usage is also on offer. I don't mean just passively growing one's Ki as a result of training, I mean putting it to work in actual superhuman feats." Natasha tapped the table firmly to emphasize her statement.

Hill leaned back in appropriate surprise. "Oh, really? That's unexpected. Hell... that's positively shocking. Or is that only on offer to attractive women?"

"If it is... well..." Natasha's finger flicked back and forth several times to indicate herself and the other beautiful woman as possible beneficiaries of such a policy, causing Maria to smirk knowingly and nod. "But I don't think there would be such a prerequisite. From Saotome's perspective, Ki is about as secret as air: everyone either has at least a little access to some or they're dead. Learning how to use that 'air' for more creative purposes isn't that big a deal for her, I think. Again, there are forbidden techniques, but conversely that means there are unforbbiden techniques, and she's willing to teach them. Hell, even her idea of the rock-bottom basics breaks physics. I'm thinking specifically of her version of 'balance.' Those wooden posts? I checked them and they moved easily when I nudged them. There is no way in hell they should have been able to hold her up, but they did, and she said it was because of her sense of balance." The redhead shook her head with a little awe at the memory.

"Interesting. Very interesting. And potentially very, very useful, I agree." Hill tapped her chin a couple of times, then changed the subject to something that had been bothering her. "Any particular reason you refer to Saotome as female?" she wondered.

"First impressions?" her subordinate smirked, "she did manage one hell of an introduction for herself, after all. Seriously, though, her legal identity in the U.S. is in fact female, so she'll be kind of stuck until a separate identity for her male form is crafted. No doubt Stark wouldn't have it any other way, but she didn't seem bothered either. I think that's because she doesn't regard official ID's as particularly real or useful. Kind of the judicial equivalent of Monopoly money. Beyond that, while I did see his male form for a few minutes, she was female most of the time."

"Gender Dysphoria? That could be a problem if a hostile exploits it."

"No. Or at least only traces of it and shown only in her female form," Natasha countered. "Knowing what to look for, I can see how developing her self-view as a girl is still a work in progress, but she's definitely made accommodations for her unique circumstances already. To the point where she is well on her way to being as untroubled by her feminine body as you or I are. Less so, possibly, since she has an alternative if she doesn't feel like strapping herself into a bra just to go out of the house." Both women traded understanding, wry smiles at that observation. "Let me tell you how the discussion of gender and Jusenkyo came up..."

############

As glad as she was to have the surprise lesson, and as conditioned as she was from lifelong military training, Natasha was still glad when her host had mercy on her after a couple of hours. Her plan to hold back and pretend to be weak had been blown completely out of the water. Ranma had picked up on her real capacity too quickly for her to figure out some way to hide it without appearing even more suspicious. Fortunately, the superhuman martial artist still described her abilities in ways that made them seem commonplace. Said host had also spent the entire time working out as well, only taking off the resistance suit briefly to demonstrate a few things, then putting it back on to continue her own exercises while calling out instructions. Despite that, Ranma looked like she could keep going all day unless something stopped her. Mentioning lunch had been a fortunate idea.

Forcing herself to stand up straight while regaining her breath, Natasha eyed the stairs warily and said: "Not sure I'm up for that climb. Mind if I join you in your shower?" she joked while nodding toward the tiled entrance.

"No!" Ranma denied hastily. "No way!"

Pretending to be taken aback, 'Natalie' put a slightly hurt tone in her voice. "You don't have to sound that appalled. I was just teasing."

"It not that!" this time Ranma didn't bother to correct her grammar. She slowed down and calmed herself. "Sorry, problem not what you said, problem is something else. I forgot there's something I needed to tell you... or show you... if you're helping me." As she explained, the Japanese-born fighter's English diction that had taken a bit of a nosedive improved again as she continued to speak. Activating the releases, she removed the resistance suit quickly. "Could you come with me to the shower for a bit?" she requested as the suit was set aside and she led the way.

"Suuuure," Natasha agreed slowly with raised eyebrows as she followed.

Suddenly remembering how they got on the conversation, Ranma turned and pointed a firm finger. "Just don't take off any clothes. I'm just showing something."

Her body language radiating bemusement, Natasha nodded and responded: "OK?"

"I maybe should have waited until I showed you something impressive first so this will be easier to believe," Ranma commented as she continued to the bathing area. The expected shower was there, a large open stall with multiple shower-heads aimed at a single area. There was also a padded bench well away from where the water would spray, racks of fluffy white towels, a laundry hamper, and a couple of stalls for clothing storage like a professional athletic team might have. "JARVIS? I need to put the HUD down for a bit." Ranma put her tech-glasses on the small shelf of one of the changing nooks.

"Something impressive?" Natasha prodded. "Something beyond showing a visible aura or doing katas atop a rope as if it were solid ground, you mean?" the taller redhead asked teasingly.

"Right," Ranma answered without any irony. "So..." she turned to face her guest with a lecturing tone, "the world is large. Lot of things lot of folks don't know about. Lot of 'em are tough for westerners to get. I fell into one of them. There's a training ground way, way out in backwoods of China. Jusenkyo. No roads, hard to walk to. Kind of place my Oyaji and I would go all the time, see?" The operative noticed the young woman's vocabulary had simplified when the HUD wasn't there to help. She wasn't sure if JARVIS had been feeding lines or if Ranma decided to not risk more complex phrasing without the auditory crutch.

"I suppose so," Natasha agreed hesitantly for the sake of appearances.

"This place was just a bunch of pools of water with bamboo poles sticking straight up out them. Martial artists spar on top of the poles. Simple, we think. But there was a trap: each pool has different curse. I fight Oyaji and knock him in the water first. He comes out fighting again, like expected, but he's changed. No idea who or what he is. So surprised, I get knocked into different pool." The teen had a calm expression and an even tone as she turned on the shower's hot water. She did look faintly surprised when it started steaming faster than she expected. Waving Natasha to the bench, she suggested: "Might want to sit down now." Seeing the older woman do so, she nodded and went on. "So... I fell in, and I changed too."

With that she briefly ducked her head into the stream of hot water. When Ranma straightened up again, it was with an additional eight inches of height, black hair still in a braid, and a very male body hugged by the spandex garment. He then just looked at her expectantly.

The spy had been briefed and had seen video, but she still did not have to work too hard to show astonishment. Video was one thing, live and in close proximity was another thing entirely. Her eyes flickered over his form as her mouth hung open slightly. Her observant mind took in several details, such as the instantaneous state change without any hint of visible transition, the lack of air displacement one would expect from an object suddenly occupying more volume, and the fact the bodysuit didn't need to be shifted or adjusted for the very different physique it covered.

To add to her 'shocked' time, she also took the opportunity to re-examine his form from an aesthetic perspective. The thankfully-legal young man was just as decorative in his male form as he'd been as a female, and the tight clothing displayed that to great advantage.

After a convincing amount of time passed by, Natasha exclaimed in pretended shock: "You turned into a guy!"

"Yeah," he confirmed calmly. "Still want to shower with me?"

The now sole woman present ignored the question. "The pool! It really turned you into a guy!"

"Uh... no..."

"What?"

"It turned me into a girl," he clarified. "Hot water changed me back into a guy. Cold water makes me a girl again."

"You... what? You were born a guy?"

"Yeah."

"You were born a guy, and a some water turned you into a girl."

"Yeah. Magic curse."

"That's impossible."

"Yeah," he nodded vehemently. "Happened anyway."

"Can... can I see that again?"

Obediently, the man switched the water to cold, and soon there was a wet-haired, nubile woman standing there instead. "See? Still me. Just... different."

Natasha stood up and padded over slowly. Just as slowly, she ran a hand up Ranma's arm, along her shoulder, and onto her head while the currently-shorter, currently-redhead waited patiently. "Sssssorry," the agent said haltingly, suddenly struck by an impish impulse. "I just need to check this out." Saying that, she nudged the unresisting Ranma into the spray of water, following her in, and switched it to hot again.

Heedless of the fact she was fully, if somewhat scantily, clothed and getting wet too, she ran both hands over Ranma's now broader shoulders and back down his arms, noting the larger, but just as dense musculature. "This is incredible," she murmured. Unconsciously setting a hand on his pectoral, she changed the water temperature again. Her hand was now full of a very feminine breast, and she instinctively gave it a gentle squeeze. "Sorry," she said absentmindedly at the high-pitched sound of surprise and a bit of arousal the neo-girl made, though her hand did move to follow the slope of waist and hip.

"This is real..." 'Natalie' decided aloud when once again the water was hot. She was slightly amused to realize her height split the difference between those of Ranma's two forms. His male form was four inches taller while his female form was four inches shorter.

"Yeah, it is. You done? I can go all day, but you're getting really wet," he pointed out.

"Oh... right..." she allowed herself to be guided away from the shower back to the bench. As if to confirm reality, she ran her palm over his now muscular, rather than curvy torso. "That's why you wear the bodysuit, right? For the change?"

"Yeah, seems to work better than the stuff I wore before."

"And you a really, truly a man?"

"I was born a guy, yeah," he replied, and Natasha picked up the distinction immediately. Though she didn't speak up about her observation at the moment.

"How complete is the change? Biologically, I mean."

"I get red days, if that what you mean," he revealed with a flat tone. "Takes more than a month for girl-time to add up to a moon, though." Natasha didn't even twitch, but that comment bothered her slightly. She herself did not experience menses after the Red Room got through with her, and she did not regard it as the sole definition of femininity.

"How does that even work? Are you able to switch back during your fertile days? With an unfertilized egg embedded in the uterine wall, I mean."

Ranma shuddered a bit at the reminder of child-bearing potential. "No idea. Just can. It's magic... it makes no sense. Guess the... egg... goes wherever 'X' and 'Y' ch-choma... chroma..."

"Chromosomes," Natasha corrected. "So you have 'XX' as a girl and 'XY' as a boy?"

"Yeah." Ranma scowled. "Lost bet finding that out."

"I see. So you're all woman when you're a woman," she stated. Looking down and past where her hand was, she chuckled and added: "And from the looks of things, you're all man when you're a man, too." Nodding to the sizable bulge his skin-tight bodysuit showed a few inches below his navel, she bantered: "I bet you're all kinds of popular with the ladies."

Blushing, Ranma rolled his eyes and asserted: "Uwa... did you get that wrong." Leaving her at the seat, he went back to the shower one more time to switch it cold, then switch it off.

"Why switch back?" Natasha wondered.

"Because," she smiled sardonically, "I'm paid extra to stay girl when working. Also, the HUD doesn't fit my guy head so well and it doesn't display right because my eyes are farther apart. But the real reason is we're both dripping wet now, so I need to take this off. Also, forgot to stick extra clothes up my sleeve." The older woman laughed at what she thought was a joke. "So need to get dry clothes for us without getting nice, new house wet." Concluding her explanation, she took a couple of towels off the rack, tossing one to her guest. With a shimmy of her shoulders and a flickering of her hand, the bodysuit disappeared from her frame only to instantly reappear in her grip, swaying with the force of her maneuver until she dropped it to the tiles. She made no concession for her nudity as she quickly dried herself, then wrapped the towel around her torso. The femme fatale watched the display of finely shaped flesh shamelessly.

"Whoa... that's a neat trick," an impressed Natasha commented about the instant disrobing, earning a grin from the martial artist. "So which do you prefer to be? Male or female?"

"Doesn't matter." The reply was quick. Too quick to ring perfectly true, especially with how Ranma looked away from her as she put the HUD back on.

"Really? No offense, but that answer came back a bit too fast to be really convincing." Ranma froze and gave her a wide-eyed look when she pointed that out. Natasha carefully schooled her features to look only vaguely curious and made sure not to even hint at being judgmental. "I don't particularly care what the answer is, but it would help me to help you if I knew what your priorities are. You didn't seem too bothered that Mr. Stark wanted you to be a young woman around him, but if it's actually bothering you, I can try to help to convince him to stop. On the other hand, if you like being a woman some or most of the time, then I can help with that too."

"Mostly..." Ranma slowly answered, "it really doesn't matter much. Guy form is stronger, especially the upper body, but girl form is faster and more flexible. Girl form can endure pain better, but guy form resists getting damaged better. Way I see it, I kick ass no matter what. So... guess I don't care."

"That's for fighting," 'Natalie' pointed out. "What about the rest of the time?"

"What rest of the time?" Ranma chuckled mordantly, then she shrugged. "Only real difference is... I'm a lot better looking as a girl?"

Natasha chuckled and said: "I think that's just your opinion. Seems like you're a bit biased."

"Maybe," she shrugged again. "Other than that, still doesn't make much difference. Training's the same. Learning's the same. Sleeping's the same. Eating's... a little different with some flavors. Colors... are maybe different as a girl? A bit? More clear, or something."

"That explains it..." Natasha interrupted with a chuckle, pointing at Ranma. "I knew there was a reason guys were so terrible with picking colors!"

Ranma scowled at her birth gender being maligned for a moment, then chuckled ruefully. "OK, maybe so, but I think that's more we don't care. Anyway, biggest problem is other people. They're think I'm only a guy? They're more respectful. They think I'm only a girl? They're nicer... at first... though they get nasty a lot of times when they know I won't let them in my pants." She paused and thought that over. "Actually, that happens to me as guy, too... just more as girl. Anyway, it's the people who know I'm both that are a problem. They get... strange."

"Ah," Natasha sighed sympathetically. "I think I see where this is going. When more socially conservative people can't put you in a clearly labeled box, they feel aggravated, or even threatened, and take it out on you, right?"

"Yeah, that's it exactly," Ranma sighed in turn. "Some people not a problem. Koyuki and his friends were very cool about it. Made Akane a lot better about it, too. Hokkusu-Sensei barely paid any attention. Tony kind of freaked out for a bit, but then never had a problem once he got over it. He even uses my change to play jokes. Pepper never acted badly. Lady we went to to talk about clothes for me was happy, even. Liked challenge, she said."

"Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts are both highly educated and fairly adaptable people," the older redhead pointed out. "If anyone has the flexibility of mind to accept your... duality, it would be them."

"You seem OK, too," Ranma mentioned.

"Not to brag," despite her words, 'Natalie' had a self-satisfied air about her, "but I do have degrees in history and law, and I've been a world-traveling underwear model with a hobby of martial arts. I'm not exactly limited in my thinking either." It was fortunate her cover identity did have such a history. Needing to play a cloistered traditionalist would have been counter-productive. "Still, I can't imagine it's really all that easy. I'm definitely not one to deny the fact that men and women aren't fundamentally different where it matters," she tapped her forehead to show what she meant, "but it's still a really significant change. Are you really handling it fine?"

"Yeah," Ranma said as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I used to be really pissed off by the change, but I've gotten used to it. I'm strong. Strong enough to be both," she said pridefully. "Super strong."

"That's... OK... that's kind of a really good way to put it." Natasha chuckled at the bravado. "Kind of an adorable way to put it, too." Ranma pouted at the adjective, making the older woman smirk. It seemed Ranma wasn't subject to the whole 'I'm the wrong gender' sensation that was the root of Gender Dysphoria, but it also seemed like a good idea to test that, and the agent proceeded to do so. "However, we're not getting to the part I really want to know. Rather than keep dancing around the subject, I'll just ask. What about dating? What about sex? What form do you prefer?"

"Ar- aba- wh-what?" Ranma's voice went particularly high-pitched as she stumbled over her words and her arms dropped from while embarrassment reddened her face. Natasha had to conceal her amusement at the reaction her sudden fast-ball caused. As she did so, the martial artist held up her hands in a stopping gesture. She then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she let it out again, she calmed down enough to open her eyes and say firmly: "I only like girls. So I prefer to be male for... that stuff." Then she rolled her eyes. "Not like it matters. Would like to... I would like to date girls, but it's been a disaster in the past. Not sure if I should try again any time soon."

Natasha noted the mention of a problematic dating history for later interrogation, but for now she only mentioned: "Just because you like girls doesn't mean you can't be a girl too, you know. There are such people as lesbians, after all."

"OK, yeah..." Ranma conceded, "but it seems dishonest to be a girl with them when I'm actually a guy too." Contrary to her earlier reaction, it wasn't the first time this topic had been raised, Koyuki's band-mates had spent a lot more time speculating than she'd have liked, but they managed to be somewhat sensitive about it. She was still working out how to handle such situations and wasn't ready to talk about it at the moment. To change the subject, she picked up her neglected bodysuit and wrung it out before tossing it in the hamper. "Need to get ready for lunch. Where are your things? I'll bring them back to you."

"Up in your room, on the bed," Natasha let her off the hook and occupied herself with eyeing the shower, pointedly not paying much attention as the uncanny young woman left. She did, however, very much notice when the Ki-empowered teen returned several seconds later, far faster than expected. Not only was she carrying Natasha's clothes, but she was now wearing another bodysuit, dark indigo this time. Natasha simply raised her eyebrows at the fast turn-around, but Ranma was blushing again. She'd arrived as the agent was bent over while removing the strappy-leotard-thing, thinking she would have time to switch to a towel herself, and a clear view down the valley of her cleavage was on offer. "Thank you," Natasha smiled brightly and ignored the mildly provocative situation to claim her outfit.

"Er, right," Ranma waved her arms aimlessly for a moment before she got a hold of herself. "I'll... uh... just be out there. I'll see you when you're done."

"Well, I certainly can't let see me now while I'm showering, can I? We don't know each other well enough for that... yet," Natasha teased. She also started to lift the Lycra top, showing the pale curves of the undersides of her breasts, then stopped, aiming a significant look at her investigation target. The martial artist ceased to breathe for a moment, female form or not, then quickly about-faced with a cough to clear her throat and strode firmly out with as much dignity as she could manage. The agent laughed silently as she finished disrobing, tossing the wet active-wear into the hamper.

Ranma was waiting for her outside the shower room after she was clean and dressed, though she wore her hair wrapped up in a towel. The martial artist had been in a classic meditation pose as she waited, only it was upside down and her head was supported by the suspended rope. As soon as Natasha cleared the bathing facility, she tossed herself off the rope with a flex of her neck and landed on her feet with a smile. The taller woman faintly shook her head, but smiled back at the elfin powerhouse. She then went to her purse to get a brush and to check her civilian phone. She also noticed Ranma's hair was already dry. "You don't happen to have a hair-dryer, do you?" she requested as she checked her phone for messages. "Huh... Mr. Stark still hasn't tried to contact me again. I'm a little surprised."

"He's probably asleep," Ranma mentioned. "He was up late working on something and I think calling us this morning was last... the last thing he did." Apparently she was back to correcting herself with the HUD on. "'Hair-dryer?' You mean the hot-air blow-y thing, right?"

"Yes."

"Don't have one, but have... I do have something better. A Ki trick. I'll do it for you," she offered as she stepped in front of Natasha. She held up her hands as a silent request for an invitation.

"OK, sure," Natasha agreed.

Ranma carefully undid the towel to release her new acquaintance's hair, placing the towel over Natasha's shoulders and sweeping her dark crimson locks to fan out over it. The uncanny battle-mistress ran her fingers through the operative's hair, starting with the scalp, and pressing a bit close to reach the rest of the older woman's mane. By the time she reached the end of the follicles, they were only slightly damp and the towel was a bit more wet. "Very convenient," Natasha complimented, patting her now drier head. "But why didn't you do that with your bodysuit? Not possible?"

"Ah," Ranma blinked, then scrunched up her face in embarrassment. "Uh... actually? Didn't think of it until now. Too used to just dealing with it. Hang on..."

She trotted back into the bathroom, Natasha following her. Inside, she went to the hamper and retrieved the damp bodysuit. The spy was treated again to a quick look at the martial artist's naked body as she switched outfits again. Ranma immediately brushed at her sleeves, making water drip from them and making them clearly drier. She frowned at her body and made some vague swipes but didn't seem pleased with the results. After some fruitless contortions, her frown cleared up and she grinned at Natasha. She performed a rather interesting shimmy, then put her thumb to her lips. Her eyes squeezed closed and her cheeks puffed out like she was blowing a trumpet for an instant before a small cloud of steam gusted off her clothing.

"Heh," Ranma said with some satisfaction as she plucked at her bodysuit and made sure it was dry. "That worked. Wish I thought of it earlier." She gave Natasha a bright smile. "That's three techniques you got me to think of today! Kind of hoping you get made my assistant after all!"

############

"Saotome just has a Ki trick for everything, huh?" Maria commented.

"Oh you don't know the half of it," Natasha said seriously. "She's been collecting all kinds of odd skills from challenges and crazy adventures. Apparently, Martial Arts Hair Styling is a thing. So is Martial Arts Basket Weaving. She said she combined the two to do the thing to dry her clothes."

"Martial Arts what...?"

"Nerima is an extremely strange place," Natasha sighed. "I hereby un-volunteer from any operations we perform there." Her superior didn't reply verbally, but the look she gave the agent made it clear such a declaration wouldn't fly. Sighing, Natasha shrugged in surrender and moved on. "Speaking of Ki tricks, there's some coming up in my report that are kind of important..."

############

As she brushed her hair, and Ranma put away the towel, Natasha said: "Until I get other instructions, I was thinking that we can do looking for decorations for your house after we go out to lunch. Unless you have already made arrangements."

"Oh yeah," Ranma of lightly pounded the side of one fist into the upraised palm of her other hand. "Tony and Pepper gave me one of those card thingies they said I should use to pay for stuff. Pepper said to go find stuff I liked since she only got the basics. Or at least she calls it the basics, though it's way more stuff than I ever had before." She shrugged dismissively. "I actually was just gonna skip it and save their money, since I had no clue what to get."

"If both Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts said to spend the money, you should spend the money," 'Natalie' declared firmly. "Wait... can you even leave the house?"

"Yeah..." Ranma said slowly. "I haven't been kidnapped again or anything. I can leave any time."

"Sorry, I meant..." Natasha paused to process exactly what her new project had said and how her cover should respond. "Kidnapped again? I'm... gonna want to ask about that later... really, really want... but what I meant to ask was if you can leave as a guy?"

"Of course I can leave as a guy," Ranma said, still boggled the fact was in doubt.

"What I mean is that did people see you enter as a girl? If so, won't they be surprised to see a guy leave instead?"

"Oh right," Ranma bobbed her head as she got the point, then shrugged it off. "Not any of their business if I'm guy or girl."

"Ideally, that would be true," Natasha said carefully. "However, this is the kind of neighborhood where people pay attention to their neighbors. At best you'd be subject to some confused gossip. At worst, someone might call the police because they think something weird is going on."

"Tch. Well, I can just explain the change to them," Ranma suggested.

"All of them? With the whole thing you had to go through to explain it to me? And the cops too if they show up? I mean... I guess you can do that, but..." Natasha trailed off leadingly.

"It'd be a pain in the ass," Ranma admitted. "I didn't have to worry about this back in Nerima," she complained.

"Oh? No one made up strange strange rumors or called the authorities or anything?"

"Heh... police aren't really a thing in Nerima," Ranma scoffed. "Rumors? Well..." She thought about it, and realized there actually had been a lot a rumors. A lot of rumors. Annoyingly, the false rumors about her intentions and sexuality seemed to spread a hell of a lot faster than the truth about her mastery of the Art. It didn't really matter, because at the end of the day not too many people she met could alter landscapes or weather patterns through the power of their fists like she could, but it did add to the hassle of her day-to-day life many times. "Kuso," she finally concluded.

"Yeah," Natasha replied sympathetically. "Like I said, you can absolutely try the full disclosure route, but you might want to only let people see you as female until you can explain it to them all."

"Ugh." Ranma got along with people well enough when circumstances threw them together, but she really wasn't too into seeking out random strangers to have long complex conversations with them. "Or I can leave as a girl and switch out of sight. Or just sneak in and out so nobody sees me." Kind of a stupid use for the Umisenken, but it could be good practice.

"Uh... about that..."

"Whaaat?" Ranma whined.

"Well what about ID?" Seeing a blank look, Natasha explained: "Official identification cards or papers."

"Oh, that," Ranma said dismissively.

"Yeah, that. Normal lesson number... whatever we're up to right now. These days, you need official government ID to do a lot of things," Natasha informed her. "Can't open a bank account without one. Can't ride a public airplane without one. Can't buy or rent a place yourself without one, someone would have to do it for you like Stark did. Can't rent a hotel room. Can't get a pet. Can't go fishing. Can't even buy nail polish without ID." At the deadpan look Ranma sent her, she said: "You might not want to do all those things, but the point is that your options are limited without one. What did you do back in Japan?"

"In Nerima? With 'ID's'?" Ranma snorted a laugh. "Nothing. I didn't even have one of those student identifier cards I heard people talk about. I did get a passport, though. Tony helped."

"And what gender did you get that for?" Natasha asked, not even pretending to not already know the answer since even her civilian guise could guess easily.

The initial response was a long moment of silence. "Crap."

"Sorry," the older woman apologized with some compassion. The compassion was real, but it was also the case she saw an opportunity to exploit. "It looks like you're kind of stuck as a girl a lot of the time. I mean, you can still go many days without actually needing ID, but if you are doing anything where you might need ID, which can be almost anything in public, then you need to have the body that matches it."

"Seriously? It can't be that important, can it?" Ranma asked. "I can just stay away from people, if I need to."

"Eh... I want to say you'll be OK without, since I can see how it's troublesome for you. But think about this," Natasha urged. "Let's say you see somebody knock over an old lady and steal her purse and make a run for it. You'd stop them, right?"

"Oh yeah, I'd flatten him. Easy." Ranma agreed readily.

"OK, you now have a flattened crook, you've recovered the purse, and helped the old lady up, but someone's called the police and ambulance," Natasha went on.

"Uh..."

"So the cops show up, and they want witness statements. They particularly want to talk to you because even if it was the right thing to do, they have a contused thief on their hands. So they want to know who you are, and they'll want to see ID." Actually, it was far from guaranteed they would want any such thing, but that didn't fit into the narrative she wanted to spin.

"I'll... say I forgot it?" Ranma asked/answered.

"OK. Now they want to do more investigation instead of simply glancing at your ID. They'll be nice about it, because hey... you were smacking down the kind of person who would knock down old ladies and steal from them... but once they realized the only 'Ranma Saotome' they could find any record of was a girl, they'd suddenly have a lot more questions," Natasha pointed out. "You could make up a name, but that would just delay things a bit. You could run away, but then they'd get your description and be looking around for your male side."

"Bleh," Ranma groaned. "Well... I guess I could show them the change when I needed to."

"Right, and best case they'd be really, really surprised, but would accept it and move on after a bunch of dousings. So no problem. However... you remember how I said Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts are cosmopolitan and open-minded, so they could handle your change?"

"Yeah...?"

"A lot of cops aren't," Natasha said flatly. "They also tend to react badly. So there's a chance they could panic... and if they're new enough or incompetent enough, they could even start shooting. So unless you're bulletproof..."

"I am."

"What?"

"Bullets. They don't do much," Ranma shook her head earnestly.

"Really?!"

"Yeah." Smirking now she had another thing to boast about, Ranma told her: "Been able to take bullet hits for years. Tony and Happy wanted to see it, so they shot me a few times in Tony's basement yesterday."

"And they just... bounce off you?" Natasha was pretending to be more shocked than she was, but she was still a little bit shocked. Fury indicating that Saotome was really that durable was one thing, but getting confirmation was something else.

"Pretty much," Ranma grinned. Then she frowned and confessed: "Though the rifle bullets can really sting if they hit these." She hefted her C-cup breasts. "And I really don't want to know what would happen if they hit... you know..." she gestured toward her crotch.

"Yeah..." 'Natalie' agreed faintly. "Don't test that." Shaking herself to pretend she was more discombobulated that she was, she asked plaintively: "What were we talking about again?"

"Guns are for weenies."

"No. That wasn't it," she said, exasperated. She rather liked guns. "Uh... back to the cops who have just opened fire. OK, apparently that doesn't bother you, but now the cops are seriously freaking out! It's a bad situation! Admittedly it's a low probability, worst case scenario, but we do see a lot of news reports about police shooting even when they don't need to, so it can happen. But you can easily avoid it by staying female in public."

Ranma's face twisted up in annoyance. "So I can only be a guy inside this place or Tony's?"

"Or Ms. Potts's place, or Mr. Hogan's, or mine too, I suppose," Natasha suggested. "Anyplace where the people already know about it. Or out in places where there aren't other people nearby." Another alternative, one she had no plans of mentioning until she needed it as a reward or peace offering, was for a new identity to be created for Ranma's male self. Stark undoubtedly could do such a thing, assuming he bothered, but SHIELD could absolutely do it better.

Ranma let out a long sigh. "Kuso. Fine. I'll stay girl outside. That's really annoying."

"Cheer up," Natasha smiled. "You've been given free rein to spend the money of the guy who set up that situation. Still feel like saving his money for him?"

"Heh... not really," the corner of shorter redhead's mouth lifted for a moment. "Still don't know what to buy. Or where."

"Well, it seems like I have more to do today than I thought." Another question occurred to Natasha. "Have you used a credit card before?"

"No. Do those things really count as money?" Ranma asked cluelessly. "I have cash too, but Pepper said to save it for emergencies."

"Wow. OK. Yeah. Actually, it's rarer to see people pay with cash these days," she informed the Neriman escapee. "It isn't too difficult, but I'll make sure you can handle it. I also know exactly where to go for the good stuff. C'mon," she instructed as she headed for the stairs. Now that she was rested, there was no reason to delay. "Let's get some pictures of your walls and existing furniture for comparison. Then we can head out."

Ranma obediently trotted behind Natasha as she asked questions about the sorts of things the Japanese teen had seen and liked in the past. Efficiently gaining maximum information with minimum photographs was something the SHIELD member was very familiar with for reasons other than interior decorating, so she had no problem with the self-appointed task.

There was one thing that confused her, however. On the second floor, she spoke up. "Are my eyes deceiving me, or is that a third massage table? One on each floor?"

"Uh... yeah..." Ranma shuffled her feet and toyed with her scarlet braid. "See, I've been learning reiki."

"The massage technique?" She recognized the term from both her own training and her times in Japan. "And you need more than one bed to practice on at a time?"

"Heh, no," Ranma waved her hands in front of her in negation. "That wasn't my idea. That was Tony and Pepper again."

"They bought you three massage beds just to practice? Rich people really are different," she concluded dubiously.

"No, no," Ranma waved her hands again, then stopped as an errant thought struck her. "OK, yeah... they are. But that's not why! Actually... they bought six of 'em. One for every floor here, one for every floor in Tony's place. It's because I used the reiki on them both. So they make sure I can always do reiki."

Natasha leaned back a bit and raised her eyebrows. "Let me get this straight. Your massage technique is so good, you got Pepper 'Prim-and-Proper' Potts to throw cash at extra massage tables just so one would always be nearby in case you were inclined to give her one?" At the bodyguard's nod, she asked: "How good are you?"

"Eeto... I learned it before I figured out Hidden Weapons, but I haven't trained in it as much," Ranma answered in a wholly uninformative fashion.

Suddenly feeling that she didn't quite have a firm grip on the situation as she had thought, Natasha inquired: "And what is 'Hidden Weapons' if it isn't concealing something under a jacket or something?"

"Oh... um... It is hiding in clothes, but really, really thorough. Easier to show than explain." Ranma looked around at the mostly bare room, then fixed upon the massage table that had started the discussion. Perking up at the thought of a challenge, she announced: "This will be a little tough. Let's try..."

Ranma pulled out the tight, stretchy sleeve of her bodysuit's right arm with her left hand's fingertips. Then she gripped the edge of the folded up bed with her free hand and lifted it up off the floor. The portable furniture quivered and jerked a few times as Natasha looked on in abject confusion. "Hmm... not quite," Ranma muttered as she seemed tried shaking the bed at different angles. "There we go," she announced just before the bed quivered in an odd fashion that made Natasha dizzy just looking at, then the whole thing somehow swooped into her sleeve. "Whoo... it feels different when it's so big," the mystical fighter chirruped as she rolled her hand a couple of times. "Uh, might want some more head room to get it out again, though," she murmured thoughtfully, stroking her braid with her off hand as she contemplated her wrist and the height of the ceiling. Trying to put it back in her grip directly might work... but then again it might not on the first try. Maybe yank it out as she did a flip?

The whites of Natasha's eyes showed clearly as she stared in shock. The agent trained in infiltration, assassination, and sabotage could immediately think of many, many lethal ways such a capability could be put to use.

############

"Oh shit!" the SHIELD executive gasped.

"Yeah," Natasha nodded with feeling. "I didn't react to well to that little revelation either."

############

"Hey, you OK there?" said martial artist asked. Fortunately for her mission, the professionalism that had been harshly ingrained deep in Natasha's psyche before her her age reached double-digits came to the fore and relaxed her expression into the mere awe of a civilian rather than the abject horror of the expert before Ranma could register it.

"Yeaaah," 'Natalie' said slowly. "Was that magic, too?"

"Nah, just Ki."

After a long moment, the older redhead frowned and said: "I'm not sure I can tell the difference."

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Tony and Pepper said the same. Trust me, it's different."

"Uh-huh," Natasha did not sound entirely convinced, but she didn't know enough to argue. "How much can you store doing that?"

"I started out with a single jutte, but I'm up to about 550 to 560 kilos now," was the proud reply. "Still not near as much as Duck-Boy, though, but I bet I'll catch up quick."

############

"Oh SHIT!" Hill repeated with even more emphasis.

"Yep, that's well within the weight range of a significant nuclear warhead," Romanova agreed.

############

"And you can just walk around freely carrying that much weight?" Natasha asked.

"It's mass, not weight," Ranma corrected. "When in Stuff-Space, gravity doesn't affect it. Nor does inertia." The agent raised an eyebrow at how the self-confessed rustic easily referred to physics in framing her reply. "The strain is on my Ki and my mental focus, not my body." She bobbed her head as if ambivalent about going into detail. "It's this whole, complex N-dimensional thing."

"That does sound... complex," the assassin-trained agent agreed faintly. "What even is an 'N-dimension'?"

"Spacial or time-like dimensions outside of the commonly understood four that people typically experience, not necessarily at ninety-degree angles to any of those four," the young, petite martial artist rattled off promptly. Seeing 'Natalie' blink at her in astonishment, she huffily pointed out: "I don't get much about the modern world, but I do get math. The equations Tony and JARVIS have been teaching me are pretty interesting."

"Sorry, but you just told me this morning that you were raised in the woods, so I wasn't expecting you to be conversant in space-time mathematics or whatever," Natasha defended herself. "How did you happen to be learning it? Is it something Mr. Stark is working on?"

Ranma frowned briefly at the unfamiliar term 'conversant,' but JARVIS automatically informed her of the definition. She shrugged and said: "Other way around. Because of what I showed him with the Hidden Weapons technique, he's planning to study it, so he gave me stuff to learn so I can help. I was good at math before meeting him, though. Kind of surprised me, actually, because I was pretty bad at school until recently. When I got a chance to actually study for real, I just turned out to be good with equations and such. Makes understanding my Art a lot easier, and the other way around, like a circle where one boosts the other then gets boosted in turn," she made rolling motions in front of her chest with her two index fingers. Then she smirked and added: "As wild as the N-dimensional math is, I'm hoping it will really boost my Art from the stress of learning it, y'know?"

############

"I'm somewhat worried about the boss taking this badly," Natasha admitted, earning an incredulous look from the other woman.

"What could Fury possibly take badly?" Hill asked sarcastically. "We only just now found out there's someone who can sneak a goddamn nuke up their sleeve. Someone who also supposedly has some kind of stealth technique we don't know the limits of or what kind of facilities he can get into. And Stark wants to keep him... or her... as a pet. I'm surprised you didn't come running back to the office with your hair on fire right then and there!"

"I was a little tempted," Natasha admitted. "Forget the stealth technique. A nice, thin summer dress without a bra, some batting of those big blue eyes, and she can get into any semi-public government building you can name with a thousand pounds of whatever explosive you choose to load her up with," the redhead countered almost cheerfully. She'd had hours to contemplate the implications and was rather enjoying the chance to see someone else thrown as off-balance as she was originally. "She can outrun cars on foot, so exfiltration wouldn't be much of a problem. I would say that if she had access to the right munitions, equipment, and a little coaching, she could bring the U.S.A. to it's knees inside a week."

"Not making me feel better about this," Maria groaned as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

"I'm not here to make you feel good, I'm here to give you information and advice," Natasha reminded her bluntly. "This Ki... it's a real game changer. The things that happened at Jusendo and Mt. Horai are just the tip of the iceberg," Natasha sighed. "After we went to the basement, I filmed her shoving a couple hundred feet of steel chains, a couple hundred more feet of rope, numerous throwing knives, a staff, and some other random implements all up her sleeves without showing so much as a bulge, and she can move around with that load without so much as a creak of a floorboard."

"Fury is not going to like this," Hill stated authoritatively. "Not that I like it either."

"I should point out that it's important not to overreact to this," Romanova cautioned. "Right now, Saotome has absolutely no motive to cause harm to the United States. You could say Stark did us a big favor when it comes to that."

"How so?"

"I found out later he sent Ranma to fly to Japan and back to LA in that plane. The one that's so popular with the military brass and politicians in charge of procurement," Natasha raised her eyebrows in implication.

"Oh. I see," Maria chuckled grimly.

"So Saotome leaves a shitty situation in Tokyo, comes to America, and what happens? She gets a house, clothes, money, travel to exotic and luxurious locales..." she waved around them to emphasize their location in Monaco, "...and on top of all that... strippers. I specifically checked, she has a very positive view of America right now."

"That is a plus. However..."

"Yes, her potential to do harm is high, but so is her potential as an asset. She learned how to do all these things. She is not only confident she can teach them, she is clearly willing to do so," the infiltrator reminded her boss. "She takes her status as a credentialed master seriously, and feels obligated to pass on her knowledge. She does not, however, really know how to get started with wider scale instruction. Though I'm sure we can make some helpful suggestions in that regard, right?"

"That is true," the deputy director leaned forward attentively. "That would be very useful. The question would be if we can get agents trained to the point they can neutralize Saotome."

"Oh, I doubt that," the master assassin waved off the idea without hesitation. "Infinitely receding horizon. Saotome reached her level after thirteen or fourteen years of non-stop training, and she started as a child with all the advantages that brings. Even if she were able to teach more efficiently than she learned, it would be a decade or more before we saw results close to matching the her of today, but she won't be standing still just waiting for people to match her."

"A point, but perhaps sufficient numbers would work in that case. Throw lots of students at her to take up her free time and slow down her personal training while boosting our forces that much more. At least it would look like a viable enough plan to calm some people down," Maria shrugged.

"I really don't think that will work, but I also don't think it would be a terrible idea to go forward with it anyway," Natasha raised her palms in a helpless gesture. "That's as long as we are very careful about who we pick as students. I think we need to be extremely hesitant to do anything that alienates her."

"Because of Saotome's threat level?"

"That's a very distant third or fourth reason on my list," Natasha corrected. "The first two are things you haven't noticed yet about the fact she learned the Hidden Weapons technique."

Maria went very still for a moment, then let out a long, soft groan as she listed in her seat. "Right. Damn. Number one: who taught Saotome and, therefore, who else knows the technique? Which leads to number two: who else could Saotome teach it to?"

"Exactly. If we maintain a good relationship, we could just..." the redhead pursed her lips and shook her head for emphasis before she continued: "...simply ask her not to teach anybody. Or at least tell us who she teaches, or, better yet, let us vet who she does teach. It's not as if she has any strong political philosophy or anything that would make her refuse. The other thing is... we don't have any intelligence assets in Saotome's community. There is nobody we can ask: 'Hey! Who do you know you can stick a torpedo down their pants?' Except her," she waved toward the chip holding her report meaningfully. "It is because I'm getting along with Saotome, that I can give you two definites and a few possibles. Definites are Ku Lon and Mu Su from the Chinese Amazon group. Possibles are Shan Pu, also from the Chinese contingent, Saotome's father, one Ryoga Hibiki, and Akane Tendo... though the last is very iffy, and mentioned because of her previous tendency to yank an enormous mallet out of nowhere to smack Saotome with. She wasn't sure if it was Hidden Weapons, or some conjuration made of Ki, or what. Either way, it's in my notes."

"And we won't ever get any more names unless you keep getting along with him, or we develop other sources. I get it," Hill assured her agent. "It really sounds more and more like we need to recruit Saotome for SHIELD. If so, then the question becomes how probable or advisable that would be. Failing that, then we'd want to know the chances of separating her from Stark. The Colonel would be very reassured, for one, if that could be managed."

"Let me address the last question first. The answer is: not happening," Natasha declared flatly. "Not for months or possibly years. Which, I think, also answers the question about how probable it would be to induct her into SHIELD. I suspect getting her as an official part-time contractor is likely the best we can hope for unless we liquidate Stark, which I am fairly certain we do not want to do."

"We certainly are not eliminating Stark," Hill announced firmly. "Quite aside from the effort we've put in to keep him alive, he is a national asset. Why would you say that's a prerequisite?"

"To begin with, Saotome is clearly grateful to Stark for what he did to resolve several of her personal issues. Now, you could argue that all he really did was give her a job and call some lawyers to let them handle everything, but that is still literally infinitely more than any adult has done for her either socially, psychologically, or financially since she went on that extended training trip," she sighed with a little vexation.

"Agent?"

"I can't help but realize we missed an opportunity here, which annoys me quite a bit. A small team of low-level operatives could have put in an afternoon of work for the same results Stark got. In the interests of developing other intelligence assets, I would recommend looking around for any other low-hanging fruit like that. In fact..." she tapped her chin in thought. "That Akane Tendo girl seems like a good candidate. I only just thought of this, but Saotome specifically mentioned her being at my level in terms of martial arts. I mostly ignored it at the time because I thought I was being underestimated, but now I can say she had a dead accurate assessment of me. She just has absurd standards for how much a casual practitioner can learn in a given amount of time. So if Tendo really is less than dedicated to studying martial arts, there could be a lot of potential there if she applied herself. She also seems like the most stable of the Nerima bunch from what we've been able to tell."

Seeing her superior nod, the redhead went on. "Second reason separation from Stark is very unlikely: we know Stark is having problems because of the Arc reactor in his chest, and until those problems are resolved, Saotome will feel obligated to stick around and help. Thirdly, Saotome has excellent reasons not to go back to Japan. Her relationships there mostly consisted of parallel dumpster fires like I've never seen before... see my notes on the fiancee situation, I really don't want to get into it now," she rubbed her forehead as if it pained her when thinking about all the nonsense Ranma had revealed to her. "Finally, Stark is a fool, but he is most certainly not stupid. He is very likely to do anything and everything it takes to keep Saotome on staff."

"Anything and everything? For a bodyguard?" The brunette looked surprised. "He's not even a weapons contractor anymore, much less going to care about the same things SHIELD does. He wouldn't be nuts enough to use Saotome's ability to destabilize nations, and he's not responsible enough to care that his new hireling has that potential. No matter how good looking Saotome is as a female..."

Natasha help up a hand to interrupt. "You're underestimating her." She paused and cocked her head. "I was about to say you were underestimating her utility, but you're not getting just how attractive she really is, either. Photos and video do not do her proper justice, and they're top-model quality as it is. In person, she... and he... has a vibrancy that's damn near irresistible. Particularly when she's in motion or giving someone a direct look." She stopped and frowned. "If we do manage to contract her, we're going to have to keep a fair number of the guys who work for SHIELD away from her until we have a solid working relationship. You know how headstrong and cocky... pun intended... a lot of them are. Especially those STRIKE assholes."

Deputy Director Hill didn't answer verbally, but her cheeks tightened as if they wanted to dimple, and her raised eyebrow spoke volumes.

"Those other STRIKE assholes, I don't mean me and Clint," Agent Romanova clarified with some annoyance. "Anyway, I suspect the reason she's so inexplicably charismatic has to do with the same thing that makes her a must-have employee to Stark and Potts. Ki... Kiis a game changer," she repeated with heavy emphasis. "The Hidden Weapons technique? Don't forget that Stark is working on explaining it with physics. Already. Today. They are researching existing cosmology science that deals with extra dimensions and high school dropout or not, Saotome is apparently learning the mathematics involved. That's just the first and most obvious thing, and if they get anywhere with it, it can have huge effects on the world's science and technology. Don't forget how SHIELD was founded in the first place."

The deputy director had to agree. "Yeah, we're looking at another technological revolution like Howard Stark led back during World War II and the Cold War. On top of that, if Stark the Younger is going to get anywhere learning from Ranma's Ki techniques, he'll need to figure out a way to measure them. Measuring Ki means detecting Ki. We've got sensors that picked up some exotic fields during the Jusendo and Horai incidents, but we really have no idea what we saw other than some common patterns. Stark figuring out a way to refine that could only help us in the future. I'll make sure this all gets emphasized when I talk to Fury."

"Good," Natasha nodded with some relief her point got across. "Also point out that Ki just seems to do whatever the hell Saotome wants, so expect more potential fields of research. Strength, speed, healing, senses... twisting the very fabric of reality... Ki seems to do it all. It even enhances her ability to learn. It's kind of like how the Arc reactor is a power-source-slash-shock-absorber-slash-energy-weapon-slash-propulsion-unit-slash-who-the-hell-knows-what-else all rolled into one."

Once again, Maria did not speak aloud, but her barely perceptible inhale was a red flag to Natasha, and the executive knew it as soon as she did it. The two experienced intelligence professionals held a silent conversation as they looked at each other. Obviously, the deputy director had access to things the field operative did not, and reflexively preferred not to discuss them. But it was just as obvious that one of those things pertained to the current case, and Romanova was inherently inquisitive both by nature and training.

"Is there something I should be keeping an eye out for?" Natasha asked at last. "Something that should be confirmed or further investigated?"

Maria drummed her fingers on the table for a while, studying her underling. "The origin of Arc technology has quite a bit to do with cosmology," she replied carefully. "I would advise you to listen closely to anything you catch about Arc and Ki in regards to each other or any sciences. Putting up a gee-whiz front should be enough to let you ask civilian-level questions, but don't fracture your cover over it... more than you have already. Pay particular attention to anything dealing with dark matter, dark energy... or Project Pegasus."

"Will do." Natasha kept her response simple, knowing even the little she was told was a concession.

Not wanting to answer any other questions on that topic, Hill moved on to another. "What was that about enhancing Saotome's learning ability?"

"I noticed that she seemed to learn very quickly," the former Russian agent related. "I asked about her visor to see how fast she was reading. She managed to hook it up to a TV and show me what it showed her. Even at what she called the slow speed I wasn't able to catch more than a few phrases here and there. We knew she'd picked up a lot of esoteric disciplines, more than she should have had time for at her age. I also noticed how her English improved notably throughout the day, even when she wasn't wearing the visor. So I wanted to test her to see how fast she could learn something new during a shopping trip we did later that day, but I didn't exactly have any textbooks handy. I thought about teaching her French or Italian or something consistent with my cover, but her link to JARVIS would have put the results in doubt. So I went with something I know very well, something she didn't know at all, and something a computer program could not help her with. The fine art of flirting."

"Flirting? Really?" The deputy director propped her head on a fist with an exasperated look.

"Unless you want to start doing the kinds of missions I do, don't knock it," Natasha responded flatly, making her boss raise a hand in surrender. "So yes, both to throw her a bit more off balance and to test her, I instructed her in flirting. I had to talk her into it by pointing out it was a way to make her sexual orientation clear, since some people were taking one look at her Stark credit card and assuming she was the flavor of the week. She was indignant enough about that to give it a try. And let me tell you... she desperately needed instruction. Apparently in Nerima, concussions, paralysis powder, explosives... or all of the above... are regarded as valid means of flirting. Or kidnapping... that's another local favorite type of 'flirting.' Apparently there had been a truly ludicrous amount of kidnapping involved in the love-lives of those maniacs."

"Right. Part of the reason Fury had concerns about Saotome's stability."

"And one reason why I can't completely dismiss those worries even when my feel for her says otherwise," Natasha agreed. "Though I note it seemed to be a point of pride for her to shrug off those incidents like they were nothing. Kind of like it was a matter of pride to shrug off the gender change. Admittedly, if you consider the lack of lingering physical damage, it sort of makes sense for her to think that way... in a cock-eyed sort of fashion. Something that makes profiling her a bit more complex than usual. Anyway... back to the test. The first time she tried it, she was pathetic, as could be expected. Woman she went after never got the first clue Saotome was interested. Ranma had a pretty funny expression on her face when I pointed that out. So we moved on to another store, and that time she had a lot more results, which boosted her confidence. After that, her learning curve pretty much went vertical."

The professional femme fatale shook her head ruefully. "By the time we went back to her house, she had better game than me. Whatever you think about flirting... or more properly: emotional manipulation... the Red Room spent hundreds of hours teaching us how to do it over the course of years to make sure we could entrap any target we were assigned. Yet she was matching or exceeding my pull in an afternoon. For example... you know how good my gay-dar tends to be?" she inquired, and Hill had to nod in acknowledgment. Romanova was famous in their agency for being able to pick out a mark's orientation, receptiveness, and even fetishes from an hour or less of simple observation. "There were women who I would swear were straight as an arrow... even ones who were with a boyfriend or husband... who were absolutely entranced by her." She chuckled and shook her head again. "If I hadn't been there to get her to dial it down, she might easily have started a riot. It was hysterical."

"Agent Romanoff... please refrain from letting your peculiar sense of humor cause even more chaos. We're full up already," Hill ordered dryly. She thought for a moment, then said: "You wanted me to take flirting seriously, so I will. Are you sure Saotome actually learned real skill, or did Ki make up the difference? You've been hinting that she has an out-sized effect on people."

"True. That's a good point." Natasha bobbed her head in a way that showed she acknowledged the argument was valid, but didn't quite agree with it. "However, she was able to describe the procedure she used to speed-learn, and it's more than just trusting her Ki to do it on its own. Plus, there's so many things that she's learning all at once, and so thoroughly, that it makes me think the learning enhancement is real. Her reiki technique, for example, is ridiculously good. The kind of thing you'd expect from a professional with years of experience, not an amateur with months. More than professional, really. What she can do with her hands is just ungodly...!"

############

Natasha really wished all her assignments could go like this. Their outing had turned out to be a veritable smorgasbord of intell for the agent. Not only did giving Ranma 'normal' lessons require the martial artist to discuss her past and her attitudes, but some of the situations they had encountered had been informative as well.

And entertaining in the case of the Mass Malibu Flirtation Incident

Upon returning to the house, Natasha had decided to avail herself of Ranma's reiki techniques as an 'apology' for the younger woman causing trouble. It was kind of a theme for Natasha to cause chaos and benefit from it, and this penchant served her well with the martial artist. As advertised, the Ki-enhanced massage was effective. Very effective. Not that she needed much excuse, but it hadn't taken long before she ditched most of her clothes and was now in her panties and un-hooked bra as the Ki-adept worked blissful, soothing, energizing waves into her entire body.

She really, really wished all her assignments could go like this.

She wasn't so euphoric that she didn't continue to probe of information, however, especially when her unclothed state lowered her target's mental defenses. Counting on the rapport they had developed she simply asked directly: "From magic fingers to linguistics... have you always been that quick to learn things?"

"Huh?" Ranma was startled out of her own abstraction. Natasha didn't have to guess what the younger redhead had been preoccupied by. "Oh... well... you got to realize I didn't have much chance to find out how well I could learn until recently when it comes to anything outside the Art. Hokkusu-Sensei changed that for me and gave me the surprise of my life. But before that? Anything that had to do with fighting? Yeah. Always been quick to pick it up. Though," unseen, Ranma shifted her shoulders in a shrug even as she worked on 'Natalie's' calf, "I admit, I'm cheating a bit." The martial artist had insisted on being in female form because of what she was now doing, probably because that body didn't show arousal as obviously. For now, Natasha was willing to go along with the gender pick since she detected a greater emotional reserve when Ranma was male. But she fully intended to do this again sometime when Ranma was a guy... and preferably shirtless and oiled up.

"How so?"

"Ki. Again. Ki enhances everything if you focus it right. Makes you stronger and faster. Makes it tougher to get hurt. I learned some about biology, especially how kid's brains learn faster than older people."

"You mean how a child's neurons form more connections, or faster connections, or something, right?" Natasha would know, it was why the Red Room had acquired her and the other girls at the ages they did.

"Right. So with a better idea what to boost, I boosted it." The pressure of her hands lighted a moment as she shrugged. "Really was a good idea. It's why I say Hokkusu-Sensei is the best sensei. He's not much in the Art, but he's real good at giving advice."

"Uh, is that really a good idea? Zapping your own brain, I mean." The operative had been trained in many things, including the sorts of things an expert assassin learned about biology. Enhancing neural tissue sounded risky to her. "Like, could you give yourself brain cancer by doing that?"

"I've never heard of any martial artist at a high enough level ever getting cancer," Ranma told her confidently. "We can get sick, but it's really rare to get badly sick. We used to help plague towns back in the day because of that."

"Still," she injected some worry into her tone, "it would make me feel better to check."

"Hai, hai," Ranma agreed complacently. "They were planning to do some stuff like that anyway just to see what their mechanism's picked up when I summon up my Ki."

"Well let me know the results, please." She traded on the friendly feelings she'd built up with Ranma without hesitation. If the procedure was truly safe, it was yet another thing SHIELD would be very keen to acquire. She also had to admit to herself that she didn't particularly want anything truly bad to happen to the younger woman. Ranma wasn't the typical target of one of her investigations. She wasn't a terrorist, criminal, rival agent, or official. Despite the violent circumstances of her life, Ranma was innocent in ways that Stark or even Potts were not. No matter how powerful she was, she more fit the category of a civilian in Natasha's worldview. She had proved to be pretty defenseless where the infiltrator's less overt abilities were concerned.

For example... "Mmmm," Natasha moaned huskily, "That feels reaaaally good." Ranma slowed, barely, for an instant, but kept working her magic fingers into the muscles of her upper thigh. The older woman heard her swallow heavily, which made her smile to herself. The Ki-adept was a very beautiful young woman, after all, and Natasha wasn't limited in her prospective sexual partners. "It might be I should have bought you dinner first," she went on jokingly. "I'm curious... if Tony Stark had you do this reiki stuff for him, how many orgasms did you give him?"

This time, the remarkably skilled masseuse almost stopped her spine-tingling efforts entirely. Natasha craned her head to look over her shoulder. "Just kidding?" she asked hopefully. Seeing the queasy look on Ranma's face, she went on more sympathetically: "Or maybe not? Sorry about that, Mr. Stark isn't the type to hold back his reactions for the sake of decorum, is he? Do we need to stop?"

"Euugh..." Ranma gave a nauseated groan. "No... no... thank all the Kami. That never happened with Tony. Now can tell from the Ki when things are going that way and can stop it."

"'Now?'" she fastened onto the word. "As in you couldn't always?"

It took a couple of seconds of silence, but Ranma grudgingly admitted: "When first learning, I didn't know about the problem. Was a common joke on new practitioners. Learned how to avoid it real fast after that one time."

"Oh no..." 'Natalie' tried to be consoling, but a tinge of hilarity creeped into her tone.

"I think it made it worse that I was a guy at the time," Ranma sighed mournfully.

Natasha snerked as she failed to restrain her giggles. Unable to resist, she asked: "For the sake of my imagination, was your teacher a handsome man?"

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Nah, he was a creepy old bastard, like half the people out to teach useful stuff." This did not help Natasha repress her laughter. After a moment of resigned patience, he said quellingly: "Yeah... yeah... laugh it up... Why not?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Taking a deep breath, she managed to calm down. It helped when she realized that someone who could sense orgasms would likely be very good at causing them, if they were so inclined. "Seriously... I'm sorry."

"Yeah..." Ranma said wearily. "I get how it's funny."

"Well look at it this way," Natasha offered as she propped herself on one elbow and turned a little toward the younger woman. Her chest came off the bed just enough to show a sliver of areola. Ranma still looked her in the eye, but Natasha could tell the view had definitely registered. "At least you learned something that gives you opportunities that are a fair bit more pleasant, right?" she asked as she gestured down her flank with her free hand.

Looking wary and intrigued, Ranma agreed: "Hai. Zettai ni..."

The martial artist was interrupted by the ringing of 'Natalie's' phone. Natasha's eyebrows rose, then she stretched to get the phone out of the pocket of her discarded jacket, heedless of the extra show she was giving. She smiled and Ranma when the teen politely looked away. As had been the case early that morning, the caller's lack of ID was sufficient clue to tell her who was calling. Quickly, but precisely, she propped herself on the massage table so her cleavage was on display, but her nipples were still concealed before answering the call with video-phone mode. "Yes, Mr. Stark?"

"Oh! Hello Natalie," the billionaire drawled pruriently, leaning into his own phone's camera as he studied the view the operative had staged. Natasha had also angled her phone to catch Ranma in the background. "Fantastic work, Minion Saotome! Stellar job! I see you've discovered the raptures of Ranma's miracle hands, Natalie. That... or you have some commendably avant-garde notions where work uniforms are concerned. Either way, please feel free to indulge yourself any time you want! I do try to operate a relaxed working atmosphere, after all!"

"Yes, Mr. Stark," she agreed dutifully, ignoring the blatant impropriety both of his commentary and her almost total nudity. Rather than try to figure out how to respond on her own behalf, Ranma simply went back to doing wonderful things for Natasha's lower back instead of injecting herself into the conversation. "Did you have new tasks for me?"

"Yes! I need you to get up and get to it immediately!" She did not jump up immediately, making the eccentric genius pout at her refusal to expose herself. "No? OK, then I need you to get to work on the personal assistant-ant-ing thing. Tonight we are going to Monaco! And by 'we,' I mean me, Pepper, Ranma, and Happy. You will need to go this afternoon so you can make arrangements with the hotel, restaurants, Monaco Auto Club publicity department, our race team, etcetera... etcetera... JARVIS has an itinerary and task list for you." The phone sounded a tone and briefly showed a notification of new files uploaded to it. "Pepper plans to meet up with Ranma there soon in order to pick her outfits for the trip and such, so it would be a good idea to be gone before she arrives. Up until we meet up again, you are officially working for the Stark Industries public relations department if anybody asks. Should you be caught, the Secretary of Whatever will disavow any knowledge... blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda..."

Natasha checked the files she had been sent and saw that she needed to be at the private section of the local airport in less than two hours. She would be riding one of Stark's supersonic planes to Nice, a five-hour trip, and would liaise with SI employees on site to prepare for the industrialist's arrival. She mentally calculated traffic conditions and the preparations she would need to make and found she would have plenty of time to call in a brief report to Fury before leaving.

A civilian, however, would feel pressured under the circumstances, so she made herself show a harried but determined demeanor. "I understand, Mr. Stark, I'll get going immediately. Anything else before I get to it?"

"Yeah. Keep an ear open for any interesting parties. An eye open for any interesting ladies. And dress sexy," he demanded, and she smiled enigmatically. He fell silent and watched his phone with his eyebrows raised in anticipation. After a while, he asked: "Still not getting up while I'm on the line to enjoy it?" Her smile broadened as she mutely shook her head. "Fine, fine... I'll let you go then. See ya!" He hung up without waiting for a response.

Rolling her eyes, Natasha put the phone down. For a brief, undisciplined moment, she was tempted to stay right there and continue to enjoy the massage and the company, but she was never one to hold back from duty. Especially a duty she had voluntarily adopted. "Ranma, could you hook my bra for me?" she requested sweetly.

The martial artist had a frozen moment for a bit, but then cautiously agreed: "Uh, sure." Natasha was amused to note how carefully Ranma studied the straps of the undergarment, going so far to bob her head about for different angles of view, showing an amusing lack of familiarity. Still, the neo-girl got it fastened on the first try, and the agent levered herself to a sitting position. "You gonna be OK? The neophyte bodyguard asked while handing the rest of her clothes to her. "I know you were a bit tired."

"I'll be fine, I'll sleep on the plane," 'Natalie' assured her as she started to dress. Then she paused as she noticed something. "In fact... I feel pretty energetic. Really energetic. Which is kind of surprising seeing how hard you worked me earlier." And considering the all-nighter she'd pulled. In fact, she wasn't even feeling the side-effects of the wide-awake drugs she'd taken. As good as SHIELD's in-house pharmaceuticals were, they still had distinctive consequences in the form of a buzzing feeling in the eyes and some ringing in the ears. She wasn't feeling those at all, nor did she feel the incipient crash that came when the drugs wore off. In fact, she felt as well rested as if she'd recently awoken from a full night's sleep.

############

"That's rather useful," Hill, who was personally quite familiar with the normal aftereffects.

"Definitely," Natasha sighed. "And it makes my point. She was able to learn ways to counteract drugs and improve on their effects just with skin contact through what was essentially a hobby she'd had for a few months. Nor was it an accident that she helped me like that..."

############

"Yeah," Ranma admitted. "I noticed how tired you were. And that tea, or potion, or whatever you took to try to stay awake. I cleared it up and boosted your Ki some. That kind of stuff isn't something you want to try too often, by the way. Better to do it the natural way."

"The 'natural' way, says Miss Glowing-Hands," Natasha teased as she tucked in her blouse.

"Natural as breathing," Ranma insisted confidently. "If I manage to teach you a few things sometime, you can do it for yourself. Until then, just let me know and I'll help you out again."

"That sounds fantastic, really," Natasha smiled. Apparently the genuine gratitude embarrassed the martial artist, as she rubbed the back of her head and awkwardly turned to leave the room. "Ranma," the agent called, making the younger woman pause. "Thanks for having me over today."

"Wasn't my idea," the young woman replied bluntly. "Though I wish it was," she gave as a far more gratifying follow-up. "Thank you for taking care of me today, and... for the talks too."

"Anytime," Natasha made sure a smile could be heard in her voice. "It was fun. Maybe we'll get a chance to do it again sometime outside of our jobs."

"Would like that," Ranma confirmed with simple words before leaving, though the operative could tell it was with deep feeling under the gave her the feeling the martial artist had been hungry for some companionship. Something she would take advantage of both for her own reasons and for the younger woman's sake. After all, she knew full well there were other agents out there with her training, but they didn't work for organizations as benign as SHIELD.

############

"So it looks like your side of the mission has been going swimmingly," Maria Hill observed. "You've solidified your infiltration with Stark, picked up a lot more info than we expected, and ingratiated yourself with Saotome. Well done," she complimented the other woman. The deputy director was gratified by how much Natasha had accomplished. She was also gratified it was one of the lady agents of SHIELD who had made such progress.

Since the days of Peggy Carter, there had been an ongoing, yet unspoken, rivalry between the male and female divisions of the agency. Or the Carter vs. Phillips wings, as some might call it. Men and women might have had the same job titles and training in many cases, but there were still notable differences in their respective M.O.'s. To oversimplify things, the women relied on information exchange and persuasion more than overt action or brute force methods. As it happened, it was the more 'male' divisions in charge of breaking into surveillance sources who should have warned them about Saotome much earlier. Having the 'Carter Faction' pick up the pieces was a nice benefit.

"Thank you, ma'am," the redhead nodded in graceful acceptance. "Did you want to change my orders or priorities at this point?"

"Hmm..." Hill drummed her fingers as she thought it over. "Priority one is to keep Stark alive, of course, no changes there. You should also keep poking at Saotome to test the extent of his emotional equilibrium and that enhanced learning. Don't push things if you start seeing failure points in their emotional states. The saner and more content Saotome is, the safer we are. We'll definitely nudge the both of them toward psychologists we find acceptable when possible. Essentially, I want you to be a temp therapist in the meantime. You are qualified, even if it's because you usually do the opposite in missions."

"Got it. For the record, does that mean that the strategy to break Saotome away from Stark is no longer under consideration? It would almost certainly require triggering negative emotional states, after all."

"Yes. For now, anyway," Maria said. "Based on what you pointed out, we really don't need the level of drama that would involve. I'll talk to Fury to make sure he understands this as well."

"And the assessment for the Avengers Initiative?"

The ex-military woman looked a little annoyed. "Keep going with it, I guess, but it's low priority. The Initiative's been Fury's and Coulson's pet pie-in-the-sky project since the Nineties. I doubt anything will come of it. If we do anything, it'll be to bring Saotome into SHIELD proper. As a contractor," she raised a hand to forestall Natasha's objection. "I agree about how useful he can be. And I'm a bit curious about this reiki thing you've been talking up," she half-joked, making both women laugh. "With that in mind, let me add this to your orders." As she spoke, she rapidly typed up a record of her verbal instructions. "Cultivate a positive relationship with Saotome. Ideally one that can survive you being outed as a SHIELD agent if that proves necessary. This is important given his potential threat level. If you muff it up, I'll throw you under the bus and let Morse or Piper or somebody have a crack at him. And do this while pursuing your other objectives, of course." Hill's expression showed no sympathy, but did show her awareness of how cumbersome what she'd just ordered was.

Natasha sighed, but nodded acceptance of the difficult task. She wouldn't complain, but then she didn't really need to. The Deputy Director knew good and well what a pain such a job list was. "I'll see what I can do, but I won't promise results. The best way to keep Stark healthy would be to reveal myself."

"Understood, but don't do that without orders from above." Hill nodded as she put her computer away and stood up, Natasha following suit. Removing the white-noise generator from the door, Maria stowed it as well and unlocked the door. {"Good day, Mlle. Rushman,"} she said in French. {"Inform me if your employer changes plans once again."} With that, and without waiting for Natasha to finish replying in character, she strode of with a stiff, annoyed stride.

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Author's notes: I admit I fast-forwarded some of the character development, at least when it came to Ranma's relationship with Akane, by making it all happen months previously and off-screen. Honestly, the whole Status Quo is King thing in Nerima is pretty boring and I want to move on to changing things up and developing characters in other directions. However, this won't be the last we see of Akane, though it may be a while before we come back to her. She's actually growing on me a lot more than I expected now that she has escaped the fiancee trap. I used to think I disliked her, but now I'm thinking it was their canon relationship I despised.

According to the MCU fandom wiki, the Budapest thing went down in 2008. I set the year for Natasha's defection to SHIELD to 2004 when working out the timeline, since that made more sense for the level of trust Fury shows her and for the degree to which she was accepted by the Barton kids. Also, Natasha is a full judoka (4th dan or greater,) not just a kenkyu-sei, but we're dealing with warped Nerima standards here.

Oh, and if anyone's mad about the "guns are for weenies" comment, I should mention I collect rifles from WW2.