NOVEL FROG 71 Lessons Learned
“I will never forgive you if you do this!” Natasha spat as I strapped her elbows and ankles to the corners of the bed.
“Don't you think attempted murder takes us well past the point of forgiveness?” I asked and she closed her mouth. “Now you need to be quiet for the next bit, because your body and I need to have a discussion and you can't interrupt it.”
“I'm going to scream and yell and everyone will know that mmm hmm MHM!” Natasha hummed as I covered her mouth with the edge of the fifth strap that was still around her neck.
“Despite what I said, I would have liked to use your mouth, too.” I said and lightly stroked her dripping womanhood. “Your other holes should be enough, since they have plenty to say on their own.”
Natasha glared at me before she started to moan as I fingered her vigorously.
“Don't worry, princess. I hate having to do this.” I said and moved to show her that I was still soft. “I wanted you to come to me. I wanted you to talk. I wanted you to open up a bit and let me in a little.”
“HMMMM!” Natasha moaned and hummed as she came, then she glared at me.
“I told you. Who I was before I became who I am now, doesn't matter. Just like who you were before now doesn't matter.” I said and my free hand pinched her nub and she yelled in pleasure. “All that matters is our actions. What we do now.” I said and leaned over her to look at her face. “You. Tried. To. Kill. Me.”
Natasha made an odd sound that I couldn't categorize as she came again.
“You couldn't face me, even though I goaded you to do it. I gave you plenty of reasons to talk. I even gave you lots of opportunities to be yourself.” I said and worked on her until she came again and I pulled my hands away from her.
Natasha was panting heavily now and her glare was softer and less prominent.
“I wasn't demanding. I wasn't controlling. I wasn't manipulating you. I wasn't laughing at you behind your back.” I said and her eyes widened. “I just tried to be there for you and I tried to give you everything to let you see how much access to my life that you had. You ignored it all.”
“Hmm.” Natasha hummed with a clear no.
“Yes, you did.” I said and pulled out a condom from under the pillow her head rested on. “You would rather be alone... you would rather kill me and remove the distraction I could possibly provide... instead of admitting that you actually like me. I guess it was just too much for a super spy to handle.”
Natasha didn't respond to that and closed her eyes.
“No, princess.” I said and slapped her belly to make her grunt and she opened her eyes to glare at me again. “You're going to look at me and you're going to see that someone actually liked you. Someone who knows you're a killer. Someone who knows you did horrible things. Someone who forgave you for killing their parents!”
Natasha winced at that and her glare disappeared.
I climbed onto the bed and showed her that I was still soft. “Look at this pathetic thing! You're all trussed up and you're dripping wet, you're all ready for me to fuck you senseless, and it's not reacting at all. Your beautiful breasts can't entice it, the smell of your delicious juices isn't appealing, and your scrumptious and shapely ass can't bring it to full mast. Isn't that wonderful?”
A tear came to Natasha's eye as I tossed the unopened condom away.
“How do you feel now that you know your mission was successful?” I asked her and I ignored her muffled reply. “You might not have actually killed me; but, you have killed my desire for you. You killed it dead, Natasha.”
“Hmm.” Natasha hummed with a clear no again.
I started playing with myself and it flopped around without changing shape. Having better control of my body was really paying off. “You see that? Nothing's happening. There's no reaction at all.” I said and crawled off of the bed. “Well done, Black Widow.”
Natasha didn't say anything about me not using her name.
“I should thank you for removing all of the sexual tension between us. Now we can work together professionally and we never have to worry that we'll be distracted by the other person.” I said and went over to where the black cloth covering was and picked it up, then walked back over to the bed and laid it over her body.
“Hmm.” Natasha hummed.
“I'll release you in a minute. I need to get dressed first.” I said and walked off to the side and put on an actual fitted SHIELD uniform. I strapped on the weapons I was allowed to have on my person while at work and went back over to her. “How do I look?”
Natasha didn't say anything and glanced at the black cloth covering her.
“Your old costume is outdated. I'm going up to R&D to work on a new one for you.” I said and her eyes widened. “Don't worry, your sizes are on file. It will fit appropriately.”
“HMM!” Natasha hummed loudly.
“Oh, maybe a day or two. You'll have it in plenty of time for your next mission.” I said and untied the straps from her ankles. “It's going to look awesome and you're going to fall in love with it.”
Natasha stiffened at my words.
I chuckled and undid her elbows. “Too soon?” I asked and she didn't respond. I rolled her over onto her face and pulled on the strap around her wrists. “I've already been reassigned to a new trainer, so you don't have to feel guilty about ignoring your duties to me anymore.”
Natasha didn't try to pull the strap away from around her neck, even though her hands were free.
“I convinced Director Fury to not suspend you or Clint when you get back.” I said and pulled off the strap around her neck myself. I wasn't surprised that she kept her face pointed away from me. “Oh, one more thing. These came in for you and Davis was kind enough to allow me to pass them on to you.”
I took out several noise clickers and dropped them onto the bed in front of her face and added an untraceable cell phone. “They worked great as a distraction, didn't they?”
It was already cued up to play the next file and I walked away before she could pick up the phone and play it. As I closed the door to the training room, I heard a recording of my voice say that I knew who she was. I said that I didn't care and that it was just too bad for me that she still did.
*
“I have to admit that impressed me.” Maria said when she and Director Fury watched the recording late that afternoon.
“Now you know why I approved it.” Fury said and turned it off. “Intimidation, coercion, carrot and stick, punishment and reward. He did it all within the span of half an hour and completely clarified his position in her life.”
“Should I assign him to the mission as well?” Maria asked.
“No, I want to keep Widow away from him for now. Barton, too.” Fury added. “Agent May accepted his proposal?”
Maria softly coughed. “His training proposal, yes.”
Fury tried to not smile at the correction. Office rumors were always rampant, especially when they concerned high ranking agents. “I look forward to seeing how he improves in the afternoons. Make sure Agent May's duties and paperwork are reduced appropriately.”
“That won't be necessary, sir. Those new keyboards have worked out just as predicted.” Maria said and changed the blank monitor to show the statistics of the administration offices before and after the much easier typing apparatus being available.
“They are that much ahead?” Fury asked, surprised despite his experiences.
“Like Agent Parker did during his test, they are actually pausing occasionally to keep their efficiency down.” Maria said and Fury's eyebrows rose. “They don't want to be seen as miracle workers until its necessary.”
Fury nodded. “What was that comment about Widow's costume?”
Maria flipped through several reports and pulled out one to hand to him. “He spent the rest of the day in R&D and this is what he came up with.”
Fury opened it and his remaining eye nearly popped out of his head. The schematic drawing of Black Widow wearing Iron Man styled armor, except it was in her costume's colors, and the faceplate had eight eyes.
The two large ones were for her actual eyes and the rest were multiple cameras set for different wavelengths of light. Infrared, night vision, thermal vision, a normal one, a magnifying one, and a telescopic one.
Fury flipped the top page and he made a disbelieving sound, because the second page showed a normal SHIELD field costume, except there were three inch long and two inch thick bracelets at the wrists, at the elbows, at the neck, at the waist, at the knees, and at the ankles.
“What the hell is this?” Fury asked and flipped the next page and it showed how the various thick bracelets unfolded to create metallic armor that covered everything from head to foot. It used a lightweight titanium alloy that consisted of smaller and easily deployed plates that locked into place and also granted full movement.
“He calls it Compression Technology.” Maria said and Fury gave her a questioning look. “Yes, he copied it from Iron Man's Folding Technology armor, except he improved it. It can deploy in seconds and fully protects the wearer, despite not being bulky or having extra reinforcement within the superstructure.”
“He gave up the enhanced strength for manoeuvrability.” Fury said.
“Not by much, sir.” Maria said and nodded at the folder. “The specs are on the last page.”
Fury flipped to it and his eyes widened. “You're joking.”
“I never joke, sir.” Maria said and suppressed her smile, because she remembered Ben's idea about using it at the right time. He actually had looked cute while jumping around her in the hallway, not that she would have ever admitted that. The rumors were already burning through the building like a wildfire, too.
“He cut out 80% of the redundant systems and it only resulted in a 40% overall loss of strength?” Fury asked and shook his head. “How did he explain that?”
“Agent Parker said that Mr. Stark always over-engineers his designs. His penchant for including triple backups and unnecessary aesthetics has severely hampered his ability for innovation and he needs others to provide him ideas to work with.”
Fury stared at the numbers and frowned. “How is it being powered?”
“Hammer's and Venko's Arc Reactor in the belt.” Maria said and Fury's eyebrows rose again. “I don't know how he gained access to the secured storage, sir. There are no records and no materials are logged as missing. I even had a physical inventory done and all of them are accounted for.”
“I bet half of them are fakes with LED lights.” Fury couldn't stop his chuckle. “I assume he fixed it, too?”
“If you mean extra shielding for the leaking palladium radiation, he claimed it wasn't necessary with the arc reactor completely embedded in the belt and covered from sight. He convinced the R&D department to add miniature cooling rods to the belt to absorb the extra radiation, which converts to heat, which they can then convert to energy that can be folded back into the suit.”
“Which explains the suit's ability to lift 60 tons.” Fury said and flipped back to the first page in the report to look at the well designed Black Widow armor. “What about the repulsors and flight?”
“Taken from the confiscated Hammer drones. Those were not restricted and he logged both his entrance and what he took, which is why I know he took the arc reactor, too.”
Fury nodded, because he knew Ben did that on purpose. “Are we expecting a lawsuit over this?”
Maria shook her head. “Justin Hammer is in jail for thirty years. His company was bought by a subsidiary of Stark Industries. Since the technology was similar to what they already owned, it was scrapped and no patents were filed.”
“Agent Parker's name is all over this, isn't it?” Fury asked.
“Unlike the normal patent office, ours is strategically locked because of operational security and no one but us can access the patents, not even the normal review board.” Maria said.
“Agent Parker can expect another significant influx of compensation for showing us how much wiggle room we have when it comes to things like this.” Fury said and closed the folder.
“I will be giving him his normal paycheck, his payoff for the keyboard design, and buying out his noise clicker, right after this meeting and before he goes home for the day.” Maria said.
“Good. He deserves the recognition.” Fury handed her the file folder. “When can the guys in the lab build a prototype?”
“It's already done, sir.” Maria said and changed the display monitor to show a group of scientists in lab coats as they clapped and cheered when a mannequin wearing the suit was suddenly covered in armor plating.
“Does Agent Romanoff know?” Fury asked.
Maria switched the view to the observation room that looked into the lab. The shocked look on Natasha's face was one that they would remember for a long time.
“It has her taser bracelet tech integrated on both of her hands and both feet.” Maria added and changed the view back to the lab. “She can deliver an incapacitating shock with a punch or a kick.”
Fury nodded. “I want her training in that thing until 6 hours before deployment. Make sure she's monitored constantly as well.”
“Yes, sir.” Maria said and made note of it.
“I wonder if that suit design can be adapted for Hawkeye?” Fury asked.
“Not right away.” Maria said and opened another folder. “They used up our stores of titanium working out how to get the plates to deploy and fit properly. It took a lot of trial and error to get the ratio and attachments to scale, and that was only possible because of adding the additional joint attachments.”
“I was wondering why it had those things on the elbows and knees.” Fury said.
“They grant the most movement and quickest deployment, which is what Agent Widow needs most.”
Fury nodded. “Get the order in for more alloy as soon as possible and give the lab guys an extra day off and a bonus.”
“Already done, sir.” Maria said and Fury stood. She knew that meant the end of the meeting, so she shut everything down, gathered the files she had, and left the room. She dropped everything in her office and opened the top drawer.
Unlike the normal procedure for other agents, she specifically had the accounting department send Ben's checks to her first. She wasn't sure why she wanted to see his face when he looked at the contents of the three envelopes, until she remembered his enthusiastic puppy imitation. She fought the smile again and tucked the envelopes into her tunic and left her office.
*
I sat in my office on the fourteenth floor and typed like mad on the laptop. It had soft touch keys, so my speed had increased a little. I was tempted to get one of my new keyboard pads and decided against it. It wasn't necessary for coding anyway, because of all the punctuation needed, namely brackets, parenthesis, commas, semi-colons, slashes, dashes, and the like.
I was setting up my monitoring network and entered the information about the wireless addresses for all of the cell phone cameras that I had harvested. It had been relatively simple to construct what I needed into a small and compact device that wasn't much bigger than the 2 inch wide cell phone batteries themselves, or about the size of the middle of my palm.
I had only needed to make a small half dome of black plastic to cover it and it had only taken another quick trip to the recycling center to get the rest of the available cell phones there. There was no way for me to store thousands of the new devices in my room without being discovered, so I had to use the delivery truck that I had rented as temporary storage.
I had also received my side order from the chemical lab and it was already stored in Melinda's trunk. She really had come through for me by accepting to teach me what she knew. She hadn't been happy with how I had already been treated by the 'best' agents and promised that her integrity wouldn't allow her to behave in such a disgraceful manner.
I checked the time and nodded. It was close to quitting time and I wanted to stop by the lab to see if the guys had finished making the BWSuit. Without all of the extra crap that Tony had included in his armor, the construction should have been fairly simple. Not having a huge computer core to hold his AI and all of the unnecessary holographic displays, freed up a lot of space inside the armor for actual control programs that wouldn't be so distracting.
I finished adding in the last camera address and saved the program database, shut down the laptop, and picked up my gym bag. I had a lot of laundry to do and I also had some presents to pick up on the weekend. I wasn't going to be outrageous with the gift giving, mainly because I couldn't explain where I was getting the extra money.
I locked my office and went to the elevator to go down to the administration floor to meet Melinda. We had plans for another shared meal with Aunt May and we were all looking forward to it.