Paradise Lost
Natasha let the NVGs dangle from her fingers, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Below her, Madripoor was asleep… but Madripoor never slept deeply, and its dreams were always uneasy.
This stakeout wasn’t the kind of thing to normally keep her up at night. A young man, messed with the wrong people, had now made himself the latest target on a very long list. It was a story as old as sin.
What was new was how many of these cases were stacking up, all of them leading nowhere good. She’d been in the game long enough to know when trouble was brewing, and this job had that bad taste all over it. Like they were poking a wasps' nest and just waiting for the sting.
“Hey, get a load of that Code 69,” Clint said beside her, his voice cutting through the quiet. “Third window, seventh floor. Jesus, what a hot mama.”
He pointed toward an apartment building a few blocks away. Natasha didn’t bother raising the NVGs again. It was too far to see anything worth the effort, and she had no interest in whatever late-night peepshow had caught Clint’s attention this time.
She heard his quiet chuckle, the faint hum of his zoom lenses clicking into place. Stark’s latest tech had gifted him eyes that saw everything. He was running the beta for Extremis 3.1.4—still under wraps for the wider public, but Stark had chosen a select few to test the upgrade, and Clint was one of them.
He ran night vision now, extended magnification, even thermal imaging. The first few days after the upgrade, he’d been so overwhelmed by the avalanche of details, he’d almost clawed out his shiny new eyes from all the migraines. But once the headaches wore off and the nanites settled into his brain chemistry, it was a whole different story. Like an artist stumbling onto a new color no one else had ever seen. Or, in Clint’s case, more like a kid gone wild in a candy store.
“You’re missing out,” Clint said, casting a sideways glance at her, his eyes glinting softly in the dark. That faint glow was a dead giveaway, not the kind of thing you’d want if you were trying to stay off the radar. He could probably turn it off if he really had to, though it’d likely cost him more than just a few credits—or a top-notch hack job. Typical Stark tech: flashy, impractical, and built to turn heads whether you wanted the attention or not.
“I’ll pass, thanks,” Natasha replied dryly.
“C’mon, live a little,” Clint pressed, leaning closer. “And I’m not just talking about the hot chick over there.” He tapped the side of his head, right at his temple. “Seriously, how long are you gonna keep dodging this stuff? Stark’s rolling out these upgrades faster than we can keep track. You won’t be able to avoid it forever.”
Natasha just shrugged. “Some of us like keeping our eyes the old-fashioned way,” she said.
Clint snorted. “Yeah, well, when those old-fashioned eyes start missing stuff, don’t say I didn’t warn you. You might think you’ve got it all under control, but trust me. You haven’t seen the half of what’s really out there.”
She could hear the undercurrent of excitement in his voice, the same kind of thrill junkies got from a hit.
Natasha was what the streeties called a “purist.” Ever since Stark had rolled out his Extremis project five years ago—first with some messy failures in the States and then with practically no restraints here in Madripoor—people were split over the flood of new tech. Especially the black-market kind.
From physical enhancements to neural upgrades, StarkTech had reshaped the way people lived, worked, and even thought. All it took was a simple monthly fee of $99 and a signature giving away any illusion of privacy. A small price for some, but Natasha had never been one to buy into the hype. She’d made up her mind to stay “unaltered,” to rely on good old-fashioned skills and instincts instead of letting some fancy piece of tech worm its way into her body. Especially when that tech ultimately answered to one man. Sure, she worked for Stark, but that didn’t mean she trusted him any further than she could throw him.
Tony Stark was a dangerous man. He had the brains, the means, and the charm to twist the world around his little finger. And that was all well before he went and injected himself with the first Extremis prototype. Unlike everyone else, he was running a special, unrestricted version of the code. Nobody really knew what it could do or how far he’d pushed it. Natasha figured the few who had gotten close enough to find out hadn’t lived long enough to share the details. In Madripoor, information was currency, and Stark had made sure the market stayed dry when it came to him.
She had no doubt that if he felt like it, he could probably snap his fingers and switch off Clint’s enhanced vision in a heartbeat. Or, worse, scramble his programming so that all Clint saw for the rest of his life was a mess of ugly, clashing distortions.
No, thanks. Natasha had no interest in putting herself in a position where Stark—or anyone, for that matter—could have that kind of power over her. She knew how control worked, how easily it could be taken or twisted. Let Clint play with his shiny new toys and live in his candy-coated world. She’d watch from the sidelines, training that much harder to keep up—and stay out of the grave.
“Today’s guy is a real bore,” Clint said and yawned. “What’s with this spy gig anyway? It’s such a waste. Stark always wants them dead in the end.”
“It said ‘no termination’ in the brief,” Natasha replied. “Maybe we’ll get to interrogate him later.”
A grin spread across Clint’s face. “You’d like that, huh? Make him squirm, get him to spill all his dirty little secrets. Picture him strapped to a chair, you giving him the third degree. Such a turn-on, right?”
She raised an eyebrow, sighing. “I’d like a night off and a glass of good wine, that’s what I’d really like.”
Clint moved in closer, his hand sliding around her waist. “I’d like that night off too… with you.”
Natasha shoved him away. “Save it for the cathouse, Barton. Go and get it out of your system somewhere else.”
He pouted. “You’re no fun, Nat. Not even a little.”
Clint’s eyesight wasn’t the only thing that had gotten an upgrade. Typical guy, he’d splurged on a few other enhancements too—like his stamina. And she wasn’t exactly talking about his 5-mile run time. Although that had gotten notably better too.
Not that she was complaining… that specific upgrade was one she wasn’t completely opposed to, but Clint’s boosted libido was as much a curse as it was a blessing, especially when she had to fend off his advances every five minutes. There was a time and a place for sex, but it certainly wasn’t on a rooftop in one of Madripoor’s worst districts, surrounded by the stench and the grime of nanite mills—most of them owned by StarkTech, naturally.
“So who’s the bad boy? What’s he done?” Clint asked.
Natasha handed him her Starkpad. “Use your vision upgrades, Hawkeye. Read it yourself.”
Clint gave a low chuckle. “Well, someone’s testy tonight. Maybe it’s not me who needs to get laid. But fine, let’s see…” He scanned the file, his eyes flicking across the screen. “Steven Grant Rogers. Sounds like a walking American cliché, doesn’t it? No subscription, of course. Hey, maybe he’s a card-carrying member of your Purebloods Anonymous club, Nat. You guys could trade stories about how dangerous the digital progress is and plot your grand revolution against the tech overlords.”
Natasha sighed, rubbing her temples. The headache was coming on strong, and she couldn’t even blame any buggy nanites. This one was all natural. “Just read the file, Clint.”
“Yes, yes, alright. Rogers is affiliated with SHIELD—no shocker there; all those knuckleheads are—he’s been active in various anti-Extremis protests and even spent some time in the clink for it. Looks like a real goody-two-shoes. But a threat?” He flipped the Starkpad around, pointing to Rogers’ mugshot. “Seriously, not this baby-faced kid.”
Natasha studied the image. He wasn’t exactly a hunk, and a few rounds in the gym might do him some good. But she doubted Steve Rogers was making waves in Stark’s world solely because of his lackluster physique.
“What else?” she prompted.
Clint shrugged. "Not much. Just the usual sob story. Dad bailed for a pack of smokes and never came back, mother’s dead. Ah, here’s his emotional angle: Mommy had a nasty case of the cancer, tried out some Phase 1 Extremis... and still didn’t make it. To be fair, that early version was crap. Wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole back then.”
“Oh really? I seem to recall you got your hands on it the second week after release.”
“I got the off-brand version the second week,” Clint corrected. “The one where the hacks had already cleaned up the worst of the bugs. That’s different.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. Go on.”
Clint turned back to the Starkpad. “So, our little Stevie-boy is mingling with all the usual troublemakers—environmentalists, anti-corporate crusaders, Vets-for-Truth nutjobs. It’s like he’s ticking off every box on the PITA list. No serious criminal record that I can see, though. But if Stark’s got him flagged, it’s gotta be more than just handing out flyers at the tree-hugger meetups.”
“Undoubtedly,” Natasha agreed. Stark was footing the bill for this surveillance, and out of his personal pocket at that. If it turned out to be a bust, it would be the priciest stakeout he’d ever commissioned. Hawkeye and Black Widow—or STRIKE Team: Delta to those in the know—were among the top-tier independent contractors available, and Natasha still turned down most jobs, Clint’s occasional whining notwithstanding.
In Madripoor, you had to be extremely careful about who you worked for. And given their frequent alignments with StarkTech lately, well… that had a way of turning potential clients into potential targets—and thus enemies.
Because Tony Stark’s knack for making enemies was nothing short of legendary.
And apparently, Steven G Rogers was now one of them.