The top popped up, revealing Nick Fury’s scowling, eyepatched face.
“Director,” said Maria, a little stiffly. “It’s good to see you.”
“Wish I could say the same.” Fury uncurled himself from the tiny cockpit. “I’m going to need a full report on everything that went down from the Raft breakout through today. I have to say, I am not pleased that you have allowed a rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. operation to get this far. How did they manage to fly under your radar for so long? Then, when you do decide to act, you act so precipitously that you manage to lose Karl Lykos and Yelena Belova.”
“But…”
“We’ll continue this in private.” Fury turned to Jessica. “As for you, Special Agent Drew, you’ve done well. We located the Hydra mole, so you may consider that assignment completed.”
Jessica’s face broke out in a delighted grin. “Yes, sir. And after my debriefing, will you be filling me in on the disposition of the Hydra agents I’ve been working with?”
Fury gave her a slightly ironic look of surprise. “Absolutely not.”
As Jessica made a little moue of disappointed surprise, Fury moved on to Natasha. “Agent Romanova, the Black Widow. I’ve heard a rumor that you’re working with S.H.I.E.L.D. now. Is that true?”
“Not with S.H.I.E.L.D., Director Fury. With the New Avengers.”
Fury’s eyebrows lifted. “I see. Well, then, you’re not under my jurisdiction.” He looked at Tony and Steve in turn. “Stop by and talk with me when you have a chance. Seems we all have some catching up to do.”
Maria’s mouth thinned. “But, Director…”
Fury held up a hand. “Not now. Cap, do you and your team need a ride back to New York?”
“Thanks, but we’ve got our own plane,” said Tony.
“Suit yourselves,” said Fury, heading toward the Helicarrier. Hill followed him reluctantly, casting a dark glance back at the assembled heroes.
The great ship’s engines started up, startling a flock of brilliantly plumed Archaeopteryx from the tops of the trees. Clint followed their flight with his sharp archer’s eyes, gauging distances and angles of release. “If I had any arrows left, that could have been lunch.”
“Or dinner,” said Jessica. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Here or back home?”
“Home.”
“It’s six o’clock in the evening here,” said Tony. “Back in New York, it’s still six in the morning.”
“Come on,” said Steve. “Time to head out, before something else attacks us.” A dinosaur trumpeted in the distance, as if in agreement.
For a moment, Natasha felt the familiar, inchoate sadness that always hit her at the end of a mission. Another identity discarded, another mask removed, revealing the blankness beneath. Then she reminded herself that this time was different. She wasn’t abandoning a persona, she was inventing one.
“So,” said Jessica, falling into step beside her. “You got a place to stay, back in Manhattan? ’Cause now that I’m not an active S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, I’m going to need to find my own apartment.”
“You want to become roommates?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Are you messy, or neat?”
“A complete slob. You?”
“Neat freak.”
They smiled at each other. It was, Natasha thought, just like the beginning of a movie. Or maybe it was like real life. Either way, she was looking forward to whatever came next.
E P I L O G U E
CLINT stood outside the Brooklyn brownstone and double-checked the address on his phone. It was a nice block, lined with other brownstones and small trees, but the neighborhood hadn’t been completely gentrified, meaning there were more pawn shops and pizza joints than big-name outlets and banks. Clint shifted the package he was carrying into his other hand so he could ring the doorbell. He felt first-date nervous, wondering whether the black T-shirt and jacket were appropriate for the occasion, worried that he had spent too much on his present, or not enough. On the whole, he thought he’d rather be back in the Savage Land, fighting something with too many teeth.
There was a click as someone looked through the keyhole, and then a series of clicks as locks were undone. “Hey,” said Luke. “You made it.”
Not sure how to respond to this, Clint shoved his package at Luke as he walked in the door. “Here.”
“Thanks.” Luke was dressed in a T-shirt that said “Big Daddy” in bright-orange letters. Clint suddenly felt overdressed.
“Nice shirt.”
“Blame Tony for that.” Luke looked down at himself. “The man’s a billionaire, and all he got me is this lousy T-shirt.”
“As I told you, I’m experiencing a little money-flow problem at the moment,” said Tony, emerging from a back room with a bottle of root beer in his hand. Tony was wearing a polo shirt and dark gray chinos the same shade as the shadows under his eyes.
“I don’t see how it’s even possible for you to have money problems.” Peter came up to shake Clint’s hand and clasp his shoulder. The bruises on his face had faded to faint yellow smudges.
“Still on the fence about joining the team?”
“Afraid so. But I was glad to get the invitation.” Peter lowered his voice. “You see Natasha since we got back?”
“Only when we all met up at Tony’s penthouse.”
“Ah.”
For some reason, Clint felt he had to explain himself. “I don’t date people I work with. Now that we’re both officially Avengers, it’s just—it’s too messy. Too complicated.”
“True. And of course, she’s living with Jessica. That might be awkward.”
Clint frowned, thoroughly baffled, and then tried to cover it up. “Uh…yeah.” He didn’t want to drag this conversation out by asking questions.
Peter laughed. “Man, you’re more clueless about women than I am.”
Clint walked into a room filled with framed prints of old movie posters from the fifties, sixties and seventies, including Planet of the Apes. There was a record player, and the soulful sound of Al Green singing “Tired of Being Alone” filled the room with its upbeat lament. “Hey, Clint,” said Steve, scooping up some spinach dip with a nacho. “That was a good training session last night. Whoops,” he said, as a glob of the creamy dip fell onto his tie.
“Here,” said Jessica. “I’ve got it.” She dabbed at the stain, looking very pretty in a gray knit dress. “Did you get a chance to read the report I sent you, Clint?”
“I skimmed it.”
“Clint, you can’t just glance at a thirty-page document that Natasha and I have been compiling for weeks. Do you realize how many leads we have to sift through to decide which ones to pursue?” She raked her hair back from her face. “We’ve done all the research on Lykos and Yelena’s whereabouts. The least you could do is assist with the analysis.”
“By the way,” said Steve, “Tony, Luke and I just got some good intel on a few of the other escaped convicts.”
Clint gave him a look. “Suckup.”
Jessica rounded on him. “Hey, at least he’s doing his part! You’re not even reading.”
“I do my thinking on my feet. You know I’m no good with paperwork, Jess.”
“This isn’t an expense report! Did you at least read the section where I did an analysis on whether or not Maria Hill could have recaptured them, if she wanted to?” Jessica’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God. You didn’t even read that?”
“No, I did. I mean, I’m pretty sure I read that part.”
“What did it say?” She folded her arms over her chest.
Clint stuffed a chip in his mouth. “That, um, Maria Hill might have recaptured Lykos and Yelena. If she wanted to.”
“Hey, what did I say about shop talk?” Jessica Jones, Luke’s wife, emerged from a back room carrying a pink blanket on her shoulder. Clint assumed there was a baby underneath, but he couldn’t see any of it.
“Hawkeye brought this for Danielle,” said Luke, unwrapping the
brightly colored red-and-yellow paper.
“I, uh, wasn’t completely sure what to get.”
“I’m sure it’s—huh.” Luke held up the box, which said “The Invisible Woman” in bright-red letters. “It’s, uh, is this a Fantastic Four thing?”
“No, it’s an anatomically correct model,” said Clint, turning the box so the clear-plastic side was up, revealing the contents. “See, you can put it together, all the organs and everything, and then the skin is transparent.”
“It’s great,” said Jessica Jones brightly.
“Obviously, she won’t be able to play with it right away, but I figured you’d get so many stuffed animals and booties and things…” Clint’s voice trailed off as he caught sight of Natasha, coming out of the kitchen carrying a huge tray of lasagna. She was wearing jeans and a loose, dark-green sweater that fell off one shoulder. “Anyway, I can always return it if it’s not the right thing.”
“No, it’s a great gift,” said Jessica. “I’m sure Danielle will love it when she’s a little older. I’ll put it next to the frog-dissecting kit.”
Clint suddenly felt his gift was not inappropriate at all. “A dissection kit? Who would buy a baby something like that?”
“Who do you think?” said Luke, but Clint was already making his way toward Natasha, who was carving up the lasagna with a sharp knife.
“Hi, there, stranger,” said Natasha.
“Hey.”
This was the first time they’d spent any time together that hadn’t been taken up with war-room strategizing, and Clint felt pretty sure he owed Natasha some kind of apology or explanation. He’d done his best to put her out of his mind, because what he had told Peter was true: He didn’t date co-workers. Once you started sleeping with a woman you saw all the time, the woman started to expect things. She figured you should remember her birthday, the day you met, the name of her favorite childhood friend. Clint didn’t work that way. He couldn’t even remember his own birthday, for crying out loud. He wasn’t any good at relationships, the kind normal people had.
“Listen, Natasha…”
She paused, the lasagna knife in her hand. “I want to ask you something.” She looked up at him, her eyes startlingly green, and Clint realized he’d been lying to himself. He hadn’t been staying away from Natasha because of what she might expect from him. He’d been scared of what he might want from her.
“Ask me anything,” he said.
“I want you to teach me how to throw a knife.”
For a moment, he was caught off guard and couldn’t think how to respond. He recovered quickly, though. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
“I’ve had lessons, of course, but my aim when the target is moving is not as precise as I’d like.”
“I’ll work with you.”
“I want to learn axes, too.”
“I’ve got some of those back at my place.” He tried not to think what else might happen, with the two of them practicing what circus folk called the impalement arts. There was no hint of flirtation in her manner, so it was probably best not to get his hopes up.
“Next Sunday at 3 p.m.?”
“It’s a date,” said Clint, and then felt a wave of embarrassment. It’s a date. Could he be any more obvious? “Excuse me. I need to get a drink.” He aimed himself at the side table with the sodas.
“Careful,” said Jessica Jones, pouring herself a ginger ale. “Sounds to me like you’re about to give away your only advantage.”
In the background, Al Green had stopped complaining he was tired of being alone and begun a new song, suggesting they stay together.
“All right, guys,” said Tony, setting a camera on the table. “Avengers assemble!”
“Come on, Hawkeye,” said Luke’s wife, taking Clint by the hand. “You’ll figure it out eventually.” The others crowded around, smiling for the camera. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw the pink blanket folded back to reveal the baby’s face. She wasn’t as bad-looking as some babies, he supposed. Not completely scrunched up, at least. And then she looked up at him and smiled.
The camera caught him looking down with a bemused expression on his face. Natasha appeared to be saying something that made Peter and Jessica crack up, while Tony and Steve stood arm in arm, like old Army buddies. At the center of it all, Luke and his wife exchanged conspiratorial glances, as if they knew more about what was going on behind them than they were letting on.
For a team of orphans and outcasts with no place else to go, it was as good as a family portrait.
END
SPECIAL PREVIEW
IRON MAN:
EXTREMIS
BY MARIE JAVINS
Adapted from the graphic novel
by Warren Ellis
Coming April 2013
P R O L O G U E
TONY Stark, the invincible Iron Man, hadn’t been much of an athlete as a kid. But then, he wasn’t the last one on the playground picked for kickball, either. He’d been a precocious child genius, heir to the Stark Enterprises fortune—sure, everyone knew that. But at least he hadn’t embarrassed himself in gym class. Being a brainiac didn’t have to mean being a clichéd egghead. Geek chic had been around a lot longer than today’s magazines and tabloids would have us believe.
But the tabloids would have you believe all kinds of stuff. Like that Tony Stark was a superficial dilettante, a wealthy opportunist, and a billionaire playboy.
Maybe the last bit was true. Or had been. Tony was trying to live down the one-night stands—but when women he barely remembered were quoted in 40-point type across the cover of the World-Star as suggestively saying “NOTHING IRON ABOUT STARK,” it got tough to ignore the headlines, fabricated or otherwise.
The rest—the stuff about him being a wealthy jerk—that was completely false. At least, it wasn’t the whole story. Tony occasionally behaved poorly, but he’d learned compassion when he’d become Iron Man. Or partial compassion. Was there such a thing as partial compassion? Tony wondered as he scraped his forehead on the sidewalk outside Dubai’s convention center. He didn’t feel compassionate. He felt ticked off.
He heard a man’s voice from the other side of the fountain: “There’s no way that rich weasel outran us.” Tony was lucky to have a stronger attachment to pragmatism than to dignity, or he’d have been embarrassed to be hiding below the far side of a fountain rim.
“I don’t know, Joe, he’s pretty fit.” That was a woman’s voice now. Tony vaguely recognized it—she was a television broadcast reporter. Had he seen her naked some years back, maybe after too late a casino night during the Vegas electronics show?
He didn’t have time to think about it. “Is that a foot?”
Busted. Tony could leave his shoe, delay them a few more seconds—but he liked these shoes, and he’d already gotten sand on his suit. He crawled a few feet, hoping to make it to the parking structure next door to the convention center.
He hadn’t thought the paparazzi would be outside the exit of the Dubai Emergent Technologies Expo, waiting to ambush the famous Tony Stark with their cameras and microphones. He hadn’t given the immediate future a lot of thought on that day, just a few weeks ago, when he’d impulsively admitted to the world that he was the super hero the media had christened Iron Man. It hadn’t occurred to him that he would become the hottest tabloid story since…well, since no one. Tony was sure he was way more famous than Princess Diana or Michael Jackson had ever been.
“Mister Stark.”
Tony looked up to see a giant SLR lens pointing at his face.
“You must be Joe.” The cameraman’s face reddened as he realized Tony had overheard his “rich weasel” remark.
Click. Beep. Click. Beep. Click. Now a half-dozen other cameras were on tripods and pointed at Tony’s face, along with three microphones.
Tony jumped to his feet. Reporters pressed in, crushing each other’s gear in their zeal to get closer.
“Mister Stark,” the cameraman slowly rolled out the syllables. “Whatev
er were you doing lying on the sidewalk? Don’t you know that Dubai gets hot this time of year?”
“Of course,” said Tony. “Stark Enterprises is working on a new piece of equipment that cools sidewalks. For your information, heat is the number-one cause of…”
He thought rapidly. Sidewalks were more likely to degrade with cold, not heat.
“…sidewalk-buckling. When sidewalks buckle, they become uneven. Someone could fall. A dachshund could trip, you know, with those short little legs. Look, like right there.”
Tony pointed to a perfect, level slab of concrete. No one else even glanced.
“Mister Stark.” Joe was talking again. “How do you expect Stark Enterprises to make money now that you’ve abandoned your lucrative weapons contracts with the military?” Joe smirked. “Do you intend to have Iron Man perform in the circus?”
“Joe, are you suggesting I’m wrong to work for world peace?”
“I’m suggesting you’ve overlooked your responsibilities to your board, stockholders and employees.”
Tony couldn’t win this argument. He wasn’t going to suddenly declare a renewed interest in building weapons.
The other reporters all fired away with their questions, yelling louder and louder as they tried to be heard over each other.
“…Iron Man…weapons…public safety…her name…”
Tony backed slowly up against the fountain as the crowd pressed in. This time, instead of dropping to the sidewalk, he leapt into the fountain, getting good and drenched as he ducked across it and out the other side. He ran to the parking structure, glad for the small delay as his pursuers gathered their tripods and gear. Tony hurried up a set of stairs to the second level. He had just enough of a head start that he was able to jump off the side of the structure without the reporters seeing him.
He landed on the sand below. Oof. Tony ducked and fled to the other side of the convention center. He tried the doors, but they only opened from inside—this wasn’t the main entrance. He spotted a pair of wooden railings next door, lining a walkway that led to a tall, concrete barrier. Tony realized he’d stumbled on to an outdoor arena. Good. Let the reporters look for him at the convention-center exit or in the parking structure.
New Avengers: Breakout Prose Novel Page 19
