Maya's adult-sized clone glanced left, then right. Nobody around. So she just started climbing the wall—and from there she went bounding rooftop to rooftop, closing in fast on Natasha's café.
These days, thanks to the K'un-Lun Qi Refinement Art, Maya's perception had stretched from 200 meters (660 feet) out to 300 meters (980 feet). Which meant that even parked on the roof across the way, a full street between them, she could read the Black Widow's every move crystal-clear.
"Clint. Turn up anything?" Natasha asked.
The Black Widow's coffee shop was three rooms deep: a 60-square-meter (650-square-foot) storefront up front, a 10-square-meter (110-square-foot) storeroom behind that, and a 15-square-meter (160-square-foot) break room past that. And the break room connected up to a private apartment on the second floor.
Right now Hawkeye and the Black Widow were in that upstairs living room.
Barton leaned in for a closer look at the red welt on Natasha's cheek. "Jack Thompson and Jennifer Thompson are both ordinary civilians—lived in the neighborhood ten-plus years. This wasn't somebody's probe. How's it feel? Still hurt?"
"For agents like us, what's a scratch like this?" Natasha said.
"Even if you couldn't hit back, you could've at least dodged," Barton said, genuinely baffled.
That did it. Natasha bristled. "With that many people watching? Dodge? If it had come down to a real fight, a lunatic like that—I could put down any number of them without breaking a sweat. But the Red Room and S.H.I.E.L.D. have agents tearing the city apart looking for us. One move out of the ordinary and we're on their radar. We cannot afford to be made. So to sell 'ordinary civilian,' I let her land a few. She came flying out of nowhere—a normal person doesn't dodge that. And my cover is gracious café owner. Clumsy is the whole point. Even so, I can't swear I didn't leave a single tell. Rotten luck. Of all the women in Manhattan, why did I have to run into that one?"
Barton just stared at her, at a loss for words. You made a move on the woman's husband and somehow you're the victim here?
"So what's the deal with that Jack, anyway? I know you're not into him—but he keeps thinking you're flirting with him. And, you know. I get jealous."
Natasha leaned in and kissed him, then let a hand drift over him. "You know the role I'm playing—the cultured, flirtatious café owner. I can't exactly greet the customers with a face like a January morning. As for Jack… his scripts have this old-fashioned flavor to them. Corny stuff, by today's standards—but it always takes me back to the fifties, the sixties. Not that the stories are set decades ago. It's the style. You know the one. Very Golden Age Hollywood, very sixties."
"You're saying he could actually make it as a big director?" Barton asked, puzzled.
"Ugh. In this business you learn to move with the times, same as any agent. You think a pop medium like film is any different?"
"But you told him to his face his stuff would sell big."
"You're taking a woman at her word? And not just any woman—me? The pretty little Black Widow?"
"So then when you say you love me, that doesn't count either?"
"You're welcome to run your own tests."
"…"
Maya pulled her perception back, deadpan. These two morons. Broad daylight and they're already at it. What happened to all that careful, discreet, keep-our-heads-down business?
Still—she was relieved. The Black Widow wasn't planning anything drastic against Jennifer. So Maya would let this pair of doomed lovebirds be. No more messing with them.
What's that? You're saying I already messed with Natasha?
Please. She caught a slap and some yelling in the street. That barely qualifies. Ahem. And as for doing it in front of all those onlookers—well, an agent's got to have a thick hide. That's nothing.
What's that? You're saying Jennifer swung first?
Come on. Jennifer is Maya's mother, when you get down to it. Of course she'd side with family over fairness—isn't that just how it works?
And what if the Black Widow decides to jump Jennifer in a dark alley some night?
Heh heh. Then the Manhattan PD is about to get a very interesting anonymous tip. Enemy agent running a coffee shop in Manhattan. Juicy enough for you?
Watching the train pull neatly into the tunnel, Maya smiled a wicked little smile—and, without warning, snapped every ounce of her perception in tight around the two of them.
"Ah!" In the fog of the moment, Natasha bolted upright.
THUNK. The sound of a knee cracking into something.
"Nnngh—" Barton, still half-dressed, doubled over and clutched himself, eyes rolling back in his skull.
"Careful—someone's here. Sorry, Clint, I— you didn't feel that? Someone's watching us. Go take a look, would you?" Natasha yanked her dress back down, cheeks flushed, and turned to Barton.
"Nngh… I—I can't move," Hawkeye wheezed, on his knees on the floor.
Rotten little Maya had flicked her perception out and reeled it right back, so she hadn't actually seen anything that would scar her. Last time she'd spied on this pair, she'd already clocked how sharp the Black Widow's senses were. Not the scouting kind, like Maya's or Matt's—hers was closer to Peter Parker's Spider-Sense: a raw, instinctive alarm bell for incoming danger. And no surprise, either. This was the single strongest female agent alive, with decades of fieldwork behind her. Hawkeye Barton, by contrast, was still green—Maya had prodded at him several times and he hadn't twitched once.
Yes, Maya had been having her fun. But the real point was the message: You two are fugitive agents. A lot of people are hunting you. If you're going to run a shop in Manhattan, keep your heads down and quit stirring up trouble.
Because at the end of the day, she was still cleaning up after Jennifer—keeping the Black Widow settled, killing off any lingering thoughts of payback.
Even after eavesdropping on all that, even after pulling all those little stunts, Maya—still wearing her Itachi disguise—didn't dismiss the clone. She kept watching Natasha's every move. There's no such thing as being too careful, and where her mom's safety was concerned, no amount of time or effort was too much.
Last night they'd wrapped more than ten jin of dumplings—a good dozen to twenty pounds—and even after Stick and his disciple had put away a small mountain of them, more than half still remained. So dinner was simple: grab some out of the fridge and go.
Which, honestly, disappointed Maya a little. Lately she'd gotten a bit hooked on cooking by ninjutsu—it drilled her techniques and produced actual delicious food, and the sense of accomplishment, of satisfaction, was exactly like watching an XP bar shoot up in a game.
At seven-thirty that evening, Jennifer came tearing back through the door, face lit up like a marquee, hollering before she'd even cleared the threshold: "Lucious's place is ours! We can knock the wall through tomorrow!"
She marched over to Jack and planted a big smacking mwah on his cheek. "Sweetheart, no more putting up with the kids screaming all day. You're getting your own study—a private study, no smaller than our bedroom!"
Jack, who'd spent the whole afternoon working in that very bedroom, forgot all his earlier sulking on the spot and asked, delighted, "Really? But—but where'd we get the money?"
"A loan. I borrowed thirty thousand dollars from the bank—and the interest is only five percent, and that's annual, mind you!" Jennifer said, practically vibrating.
"Hold on. Jennifer—neither you nor I have steady work. How could you possibly get a loan that size? You didn't put our apartment up as collateral, did you?"
American banks were not charities. Jennifer and Jack, put politely, were freelancers; put bluntly, they were the unemployed. To a bank, they had no credit whatsoever.