No.
James and Toni were curled up on the couch, Toni with her eyes not even half-open, leaning on James and sipping her coffee while he traced her spine with his metal arm and watched her with soft eyes and a fond smile reserved only for her.
Natasha and Sam were sitting by the counter. Sam half watching the news anchor, who was droning on about sales rates, as Natasha supervised Clint, who had way too much energy for just before 9 in the morning.
Steve, who was still in his running clothes, was making enough bacon, eggs, and toast to feed half of New York City.
This was when they all had their peace, no villain got up this early to wreak havoc on the streets at this hour. This was when they could all relax while JARVIS sent all calls from Fury and Shield to a phone sex line so they could have their peace and quiet. Their ‘team bonding time’ was when they did nothing when they were content in each other's company.
“BREAKING NEWS” almost everyone jumped, Steve’s egg flying out of the pan and onto the wall, Clint shrieked, Sam fell over while Toni opened one eye all the way, still too calm to care. James raised an eyebrow and Natasha looked mildly amused.
The news anchor, who had looked rather bored earlier was now sitting with her back ramrod straight as she said the words that dashed across the top of the screen “Medusa has made another hit” everyone turned their full attention to the screen which was now showing Medusa’s signature. “the owner of Anderson Corporation, a cutthroat financial company, was found dead this morning. The police have not released a statement as to who, but an inside source attributes this murder to the infamous Medusa. A flash drive filled with evidence of tax fraud, theft, corporate espionage, and the attempted murder of his business partner Patrick Hyde was found in his desk when police did a sweep of the scene….” everyone tuned out the
“God, to try and murder your own business partner… that guy is just awful” sam trailed off with a wince as he realized Toni had once been in a situation like that but when she made a wave with her hand, he relaxed a little.
Steve, after cleaning the egg off the wall mumbled “Medusa, I could have sworn I’d heard that name before….. Who are they again?”
Natasha was the first to answer “she’s one of the most if not the most successful assassins and spooks of all time.”
Winter took over and nodded “she’s more successful than we were, and we’ve been active 60 years longer than her.”
Toni smiled to herself, she was well aware of her record and reputation and planned on having a career as long as she was needed and could. She had started when she was 16 and now, 10 years later she was one of the best spook assassins in the world. She vanished without a trace and no one could ever find her, they had tried and she had watched as they searched every corner of the earth. Conspiracy theories online included she was god, alien, or some kind of superior benevolent being who would solve problems before people ever knew they were there.
Natasha continued, “when I was at the red room they kept going on about how she would have been the perfect widow, they tried to analyze her fighting styles, to find who had taught her, but they never could. Eventually, they sent me to go and try to bring her back to the red room.”
She gained a faraway look in her eyes, “she showed up in a coat and some armor with a mask. There was no known person to see Medusa and live to tell the tale, but I knew it was her as soon as I saw her. I remember her just standing in front of me, I had gone to answer the door of my hotel room expecting to find a drunk person trying to get into the wrong room, and instead, Medusa stood right in front of me. She handed me a slip of paper, placed her other hand on my cheek like a mother to a child. She stepped back, nodded, then disappeared. I had tried to follow her but I couldn’t.” She shook herself and said softly, “I still have the note.”
She pulled out a worn piece of paper that looks as if it was ready to crumble away into nothingness. She read aloud, “Little spider, I know why you were sent, but my answer is no. Monsters like me hunt alone, I will give you some advice. The tangled red web around you is not your friend, find someone who is. I hope to see you again when you have found a family to call your own.” the widow refolded the page and slipped it away.
“For someone who kills the way she does, she sounds nice in a slightly twisted and gross way,” said Clint, “I mean she does good things, but it's a little creepy. Like showing up randomly, not talking, giving someone a note, and leaving.”
“She was very talented,” Winter rumbled, “Hydra tried to recruit her. They sent 24 agents to talk to her and try and convince her it was a good cause. We didn’t hear from them and my handlers were panicking when they got an email with a location and not saying she wanted no record of her answer.”
“They sent a few other agents, they figured she was going to say yes. When they came back they had pictures of 23 agents dead, they had bled out from every opening in their body, it was very efficient work. The last agent looked like he had been through hell.” he shifted so he could hold Toni closer, he didn’t like talking about his time with Hydra and neither did James. “The guy was a mess, he had curled up into a ball and was rocking back and forth. All hydra agents have to be able to withstand torture but she had broken this guy even though he seemed fine.”
“From what we could understand before he died, she had said no. but felt that she needed to make a point not to try and communicate with her again. A few weeks after that I ran into her on one of our longer missions and she told me she was sorry for me, gave me a nod, and left. I’m pretty sure I saw her a few times after that and I’m also pretty sure we were friends.”
Sam whistled “Damn, I'm never gonna piss her off.”
Steve frowned “wait… Isn’t Fury trying to get her to join the Avengers?”
“Yep, but she said no.” Toni pointed out. “Remember that day when everyone on the helicarrier got really bad food poisoning?”
Everyone nodded, how could they not? It felt like they were dying and everything tasted like bile. Fury had been… furious.
“She did that, she wanted Fury to know that she knew how to get onto the helicarrier and probably that she could kill everyone. I’m guessing that was her response.”
“How do you know that Toni?” Natasha asked.
“Medusa made sure to put her response where I could find it” JARVIS answered smoothly. As if getting messages from an assassin was an everyday thing, which, come to think of it, was an everyday thing at the compound.
Everyone sat in silence, contemplating.
“Okay, enough thinking about what painful ways we could die because of our career choices.” Toni clapped her hands and said in a voice that was surprisingly alert since she had only been half-conscious a few minutes ago. “Let’s have breakfast.”
Before anyone could move, an alarm blared through the tower.