“She’s not with them.”
“She’s a prisoner in our custody,” said Clint, “but right now, she’s working with us.”
“And we need all the help we can get,” said Captain America.
“Poor little super heroes.” Carnage was scrabbling at the cocoon of webbing that held him, causing odd pockets to bulge out. “Most of us are probably near the surface level by now. You can’t win this one.”
“Hey,” said Luke, cautiously peering into a shadowy corner. “Anyone see Baboon Boy and Vampire Girl? Either they went to find a room, or they’re headed for a night on the town.”
Inside his cocoon, Carnage giggled. “You’re lo-sing!”
Peter flicked his wrist and added another layer of webbing, muffling Carnage’s words. “What was that? Couldn’t make it out.”
“He’s right, though,” said Captain America. “This is spiraling out of control. We need to get back up to the surface and stop anyone else from escaping.”
“Good idea,” said Jessica, trying one of the doors. It led to a corridor lined with more doors. “We’re too far underground to get any cellphone reception here, but I think we might get a signal if we could climb back up to B level.”
“Over here,” said Clint. He yanked hard at a doorknob, but it didn’t give. “Something’s jamming it.”
“Hang on a sec,” said Luke. He yanked the door off its hinges, revealing the chair that had been shoved up against it. The fire stairs had been painted gunmetal gray and smelled of dust and cigarette smoke; clearly, they were only used by guards sneaking an unofficial cigarette break.
“Okay,” said Captain America. “Let’s go!”
Their footsteps were loud on the stone and metal stairs, and no one attempted to talk. They had entered the stairwell at the eighth and bottom level; on the fourth level, they found a dead guard—his brown eyes opened wide in shock, an enormous, gaping wound in his chest.
“No weapon,” said Clint, checking the man’s body. His hands came away stained with blood.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” said Captain America.
Clint wiped his hands on his pants, and then closed the dead guard’s eyes before following the others. Natasha, just ahead of him, looked back at him. “We haven’t seen any other guards besides the two dead ones and this one.”
“I know. And there are supposed to be sixty-seven S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stationed here.”
“Maybe they’re being held as hostages.”
“Maybe.”
Natasha stopped moving, one foot raised on the next step.
“This is it,” Captain America called back down the stairs. “Step back while I open this door. We don’t know what we’re going up against, so brace yourselves.”
The door crashed open, and they found themselves standing directly below the demolished roof. There were at least eighty bodies crammed into the remains of the lobby—all of them busily shouting and jostling, and passing around guns and combat vests and laptops looted from the prison. Rain sleeted down, making the scene even more surreal. A low animal growl rose from the crowd.
“Guess we found everyone,” said Peter.
“Captain,” said a voice with a honeyed Italian accent, “Are you here to deliver a blistering lecture on our moral shortcomings?”
“No. I’m here to put you down.”
“How amusing.” Nefaria gave a conjurer’s wave of his hand, and then there were ten Nefarias, each laughing with impossibly white teeth. The mob behind him let out a roar and attacked.
Clint felt a blow to his head, whirled and aimed a kick at a cloaked figure who dissolved—leaving him off balance and vulnerable to an attack from an orange, armor-plated tank of a man.
As Clint aimed an arrow at the Armadillo, he realized some of the figures he saw coming at him were actually holographic projections. When he looked out of the corner of his eyes at them, the illusions wavered. “Luke,” he shouted, trying to warn him. But to his shock, Luke turned and slammed his fist into Clint’s stomach.
“What the—”
As Luke lunged for him again, Clint saw that the big man’s eyes had turned opaque and milky. In the corner of the room, Clint spotted Purple Man smiling, his face still bloody from Luke’s earlier beating.
Guess he got his powers back.
“Luke!” Captain America caught Cage’s fist. “You have to fight whatever’s—” Heavy hands grabbed Captain America under the jaw, cutting him off mid-sentence. With a gigantic heave, Crusher Creel tossed Captain America up and out of the gaping hole in the roof.
“Captain!” Jessica struggled in Creel’s thickly muscled embrace.
“What do you have for me, little girl?” asked Creel, squeezing the breath out of Jessica. “Is there something worth absorbing?” As Jessica sagged, beginning to pass out, Creel grunted. “No, how disappointing. Nothing but a weak human female. Kindest to just break your neck and…hang on.” The man’s bald head came up, as if he’d been struck. “Well, what do you know? There is a—”
Jessica’s hand shot out, and she poked two stiffened fingers into Creel’s eyes. Howling, he hunched over, clutching his face. Jessica kicked him in the back, toppling him.
At the same time this was happening, Captain America flipped himself in midair. But it was no use—there was no way for him to break his fall, nothing for him to grab on to.
“Cap!” Spider-Man shot a jet of webbing from his unbroken wrist, but it didn’t extend far enough. Just as Captain America began plummeting down, a flash of metallic red and gold shot through the sky.
“Can’t leave you kids alone for a minute,” said Iron Man, grabbing Captain America under the armpits. “What happened down there?”
“You got me. I was on my way to a security conference in Washington.”
Down below, a dozen inmates had left the brawl and were climbing up out of the roof. A few had already made it onto the landing dock where the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents stood like zombies, their milk-pale eyes glazed over—more victims of Killgrave’s hypnotic power.
Iron Man swooped down, releasing Captain America a few feet from the ground. “Maybe we were a bit hasty breaking up the Avengers,” he said, aiming a blast from the palms of his metal gauntlets down at the ground and trapping two of the inmates in a barricade of fire.
“We didn’t break up,” said Captain America, punching an inmate before he could slice open a guard’s throat with razor-sharp claws. “You broke us up.”
“I may have said the words,” said Iron Man, “but I think we both knew the thrill was gone.”
“Guys,” said Clint. “A little more focus on the here and now?” He aimed a Vibranium-tipped arrow at Carnage, who had escaped his webbed cocoon and was now gleefully tangling Spider-Man in his barbed tendrils. The arrow passed straight through Carnage, leaving a hole that closed up even as Clint watched.
“You trying to say you need a little help?” Tony directed a fusillade of fiery blasts at Carnage.
Clint turned just in time to see Luke rounding on Natasha, who had been using his powerful body as a shield. Natasha flicked her wrist, sending a circular blade whizzing through the air. It passed scant centimeters from Luke’s nose, arcing across the room and hitting Purple Man squarely in the forehead.
As the violet-skinned telepath fell unconscious, Luke released Natasha. Caught off balance, Natasha began to fall into the path of Iron Man’s chest-mounted Uni-beam.
Without thinking, Clint threw himself on top of Natasha and knocked her to the side. Searing heat passed over his back; he was going to have a burn. “You okay?”
Natasha looked up at him with a little half-smile playing around her mouth. “Sure. Do you always do this at the end of a fight?”
He wondered how much she could feel through the Vibranium body armor. “What makes you think it’s the end?”
“Your friend over there.”
Clint moved his body off Natasha so she could breathe, and there was Iron Man, demolishing their opponents
like a futuristic red-and-gold knight.
“Hey, guys. Want to come back to my house when we’re all done?” His voice came out of the helmet sounding a little brassy.
Captain America nailed Jigsaw with one blow to his misaligned face. “Only if you don’t order pizza again.” All around them, inmates were slowing down, stopping, looking. Clint felt himself grinning and turned back to Nat.
For the first time all evening, she wasn’t at his side.
Damn it. Clint selected the arrow from his quiver and nocked it as he scanned the room. In the midst of all the writhing, fighting bodies, some human and some scaled or winged or furred, Clint went very still. He spotted her walking almost calmly through the chaos of battle, as if she trusted her confidence alone to keep her unharmed.
Sighting down the arrow, Clint made an adjustment. Jessica kicked a villain in front of the Black Widow, forcing Natasha to hesitate. As if she felt the weight of Clint’s gaze, Natasha turned; for a moment, she looked back at him, just as she had back on the Helicarrier. This time, there was no mocking come-hither smile. Instead, Natasha faced him fully, making herself an easier target.
Because of her Vibranium armor, of course, he would have to go for a head shot. Clint wondered what Nat would have done if she had known there were no more ingenious Stark Industries arrows left in his quiver. He would have to choose: kill her, or let her escape. Except there was no choice. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and he had his orders: If at any point you think Romanova poses any kind of a threat, or if she shows any signs of attempting to escape, neutralize her.
He even had the Widow’s permission. If I’m not going to walk out of here, kill me. That’s why she’s waiting for me to make up my mind, Clint realized. She’s giving me the choice.
Slowly, carefully, he lowered his bow. Natasha did smile then, a smile that seemed as rueful as the thoughts racing through his head. He was going to pay for this, he knew.
Then she was gone, and someone was jumping on him, and there was no more time for reflection.
The next half hour was a blur of activity as Iron Man helped Captain America and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents round up forty-four of the inmates.
As he was leaving, Clint spotted a circular blade marked with a small black-and-red symbol wedged into the wall. A black widow spider.
Clint slipped the blade into an outside pocket in his vest. He figured he might as well keep a souvenir of the brief relationship that had probably just ended his career.
S I X
DESPITE her fatigue, Jessica Drew stood at attention in Commander Hill’s office—spine straight, arms at her sides and feet at a regulation forty-five-degree angle with the heels together. She could smell the hot, slightly bitter coffee sitting on Hill’s desk. It was five in the morning, and Jessica was tired and sore, but still pumped up from the long night of fighting. She could have used a cup of coffee, too, and a doughnut, either powdered sugar or sugar glazed. Possibly both.
“I know Director Fury thought highly of you, Agent Drew. But Fury’s not here right now. And I, for one, am not overly impressed with your performance to date.” Hill didn’t say any more about Nick Fury’s whereabouts, and Jessica wondered whether the other woman knew as much about the details of his mission as she herself did. Probably not.
“I am aware that until fairly recently, you had powers to fall back on. This does not, in my opinion, excuse your part in what amounts to total assignment failure.”
“No, ma’am,” Jessica replied automatically, even though she thought this grossly unfair. No wonder Hill was so disliked. Unlike Fury, who faced up to unpleasant truths, Hill tended to massage the facts to suit her plans. She was also a poor manager of people. The only reason she could have had to remind Jessica about the loss of her powers was to throw her off balance. But there was no underlying strategy here as far as Jessica could tell.
Fury, on the other hand, never did anything without a solid and specific reason.
“All of this forces me to reevaluate your role within S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Hill went on, and then paused. She seemed to be waiting for some sort of a response; Jessica nodded.
The truth was, Jessica was only half-listening to the litany of her failings. In the midst of the battle last night, she had felt the first real tingle of her old powers returning. Until that moment, she had been convinced the operation had been a failure, and that Hydra had either lied to her about having the technology to restore her powers or been mistaken in their capabilities. But when she had attempted to fire her gun into the alien symbiote and discovered she was out of bullets, the surge of adrenaline must have triggered something.
Hydra might be an organization of ruthless international terrorists, but they had kept their side of the bargain. Jessica just hoped she hadn’t slipped up last night when she had aimed her bio-electric blasts at Carnage. In all the confusion, she didn’t think anyone had noticed her using her powers, but it was hard to tell with Clint and Luke—they tended to keep to themselves. Still, she didn’t think they’d twigged to her mistake. Luke had been rattled by the Purple Man, and Clint—well, he had been too distracted by the Black Widow to notice anything. Wonder what would have happened if I had all my powers back.
The injected DNA of a radioactive spider had given Jessica many of the same abilities as Peter Parker: heightened agility and speed, the ability to stick to walls, and a highly intuitive sense of impending danger. The experimental treatments Jessica’s father had given her had also imbued her with abilities Spider-Man did not possess: the ability to shoot bioelectric blasts from her hands, and a natural, pheromone-based scent that attracted heterosexual men—and repelled heterosexual women. Jessica wasn’t entirely sure she wanted that part of her power to return. It was a relief to sit next to a man you liked and not have to remember to keep your defenses tamped down. And how lovely to get to know a man and discover whether he was really attracted to you as a person, rather than just compelled by your screwy body chemistry.
Of course, the flip side of being normal was discovering that the man you liked only regarded you as a friend. Perhaps that Black Widow person had some interesting pheromones of her own. Jessica, for one, had felt dislike at first sight for the Russian. But then, that might have had something to do with watching her ordinarily imperturbable partner leaving himself wide open to attack.
Something in Commander Hill’s voice suggested she was finally getting to the point. Jessica focused on Fury’s replacement, trying to keep all expression from her face.
“And so, Agent Drew, I’m having both you and Agent Barton pulled from all active-duty assignments. Unlike Barton, you will not be investigated for dereliction of duty, but you will be expected to cooperate in the investigation.”
“I don’t see why you have to investigate Clint, Commander Hill. After all, there’s no way he could have anticipated the breakout.” And you’re the genius who put him in charge of the Widow, Jessica added silently.
Hill’s lips thinned. “If that is the case, then that is what the investigation will reveal.” Her phone chimed; she glanced down at it for a moment, and then texted back. When she was done, she said, “Oh, by the way, since you’ll be doing purely support work, you should change out of uniform.”
“All right,” said Jessica. “Am I dismissed?”
“Of course,” said Hill. Jessica waited. No point in heading for the door. Hill would just call her back at the last minute. She had read about this technique in a World War II novel. Of course you can go home, Mademoiselle. Ah, but there is one more thing: First give us the name of your contact in the Resistance.
Hill looked annoyed as she realized Jessica wasn’t falling for the trick. “Oh, well, there is one more thing.”
Jessica met Maria Hill’s cold blue gaze and knew it was going to be worse than she had expected. “Yes?”
“You’ve been reassigned. You’re not working with Agent Barton anymore.”
JESSICA walked back to her old desk to gather her things and saw Clint,
wearing one of Coulson’s old, ill-fitting suits. He looked adorably stoic, but Jessica, who knew him well, could tell he would probably have preferred a court martial to this demotion.
“So you get to keep doing active work?” He smiled, and it was genuine. “Good for you. I’m supposed to go sit next to Coulson to learn spreadsheets.”
Jessica looked down at her black jumpsuit. “Oh, this. No, I’ve been moved, too. I just haven’t had time to shower and change out of uniform yet.”
“Oh, hell. Jess, I’m sorry.”
“Hawkeye,” said Jessica. He looked up, and the look in his eyes killed the joke she was about to make. She held out her hand. “Come on.”
“Jessica, there’s no point trying to talk Commander Hill out of this.”
“That’s not where we’re going.” Since he didn’t take her hand, she grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him up.
“What’s the plan? Jump off the ship in protest?”
“Like you’d leave your bow behind.”
“It’s not really my bow, as Commander Hill reminded me.”
“Right. Like they didn’t use your input in designing it. Like anyone else could use it.” They emerged onto the deck of the Helicarrier. Suddenly, Jessica felt she could breathe again. The air was cool and brisk, and had that indefinable late-autumn smell. Behind them, the sun was rising in a blaze of gold and amber and rose, the ruddy colors making the dark spires and towers of Lower Manhattan appear like something out of a fairy tale. Below them, the Statue of Liberty came into sight—first a dark silhouette, and then bathed in early morning sunlight that lightened the oxidized green of her outstretched copper arm.
“Emma Lazarus called her the mother of exiles,” said Jessica.
“How do you know that? You didn’t even grow up in the U.S., right?”
“There’s a course you take when you become a citizen.”
Jessica had been raised in Transia, a tiny East European country, but both her parents had been British nationals. After her father’s experiments in accelerating evolution had gone awry, though, she had been raised by Lady Bova—a lovely, compassionate woman who had once been a Jersey cow.