“They say a woman’s intuition is usually accurate, but unfortunately, you guessed wrong this time.” Roy looked at Natasha calmly and spoke at an unhurried pace.
He and Natasha had a certain amount of personal history.
They had crossed the line beyond ordinary friendship more than once.
Since he’d already transmigrated into the Marvel Universe, it would have been almost unreasonable not to get intimately acquainted with the famous Black Widow.
Even so, Roy still had no intention of telling Natasha the truth.
From a certain perspective, his status as a Jinchūriki was one of his newest trump cards.
Casually revealing a trump card like that would hardly be wise.
“It really has nothing to do with you?” Natasha asked again.
“No.” Roy replied.
Natasha frowned slightly and stared at him in silence.
After thinking for more than ten seconds, she spoke softly.
“If it has nothing to do with you, then could I hire you to investigate the origin of that giant creature?” “If S.H.I.E.L.D.
can offer me compensation that interests me, I wouldn’t mind investigating it for you.” Roy smiled.
Although Natasha had brought up a commission herself, Roy was certain she was merely testing him.
“What kind of compensation do you want?” Natasha immediately asked.
“You’re the one trying to hire me.” “I’m not the one asking something from you.” “You can figure out for yourself what kind of payment would be enough to interest me.” Roy replied slowly.
Natasha fell silent again.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
“My takeout’s here.” Roy looked at Natasha.
“If you haven’t eaten dinner yet, you can stay and eat with me.” “Just dinner?” Natasha’s eyes gleamed as she gave him a seductive smile.
“If you feel like doing something else after dinner, I wouldn’t mind that either.” Without waiting for Natasha to answer, Roy used the Body Flicker Jutsu and disappeared from her sight.
Before long, he returned to the dining room carrying the takeout.
Natasha’s arrival hadn’t been part of his plans.
Fortunately, he’d ordered enough food for two people to eat their fill.
Natasha also left the living room and joined him in the dining room.
“Want a drink?” Roy walked over to the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of thirty-year-old Macallan whisky before turning toward Natasha.
“I can have a little.” Natasha replied.
“Want ice?” Roy asked.
“What do you think?” Natasha countered.
Roy smiled and poured two glasses.
One with ice.
One without.
He handed the iced whisky to Natasha and kept the neat one for himself.
…
The next day at noon.
Roy slowly opened his eyes after having stayed up until well past midnight.
He was alone in bed.
Natasha had left shortly after dawn.
Black Widow really is something else.
Recalling the intense “battle” he’d had with Natasha the previous night, Roy walked toward the bathroom with a thoroughly satisfied expression.
Despite standing on different sides professionally, he had to admit that Natasha was an exceptionally enticing partner in bed.
Her flexibility and agility rivaled those of world-class gymnasts and acrobats, allowing her to pull off many difficult movements that ordinary women simply couldn’t.
After washing up and changing into clean clothes, Roy used the Flying Raijin Jutsu and arrived in Hell’s Kitchen.
He didn’t head directly to the detective agency.
Instead, he went to a nearby restaurant and decided to have lunch first.
After entering, he chose a seat by the window and casually ordered several dishes.
Once the waiter left, Roy began considering his next moves.
Tony had only returned to Los Angeles yesterday.
Nothing significant should happen to him in the immediate future.
For now, Tony would likely devote most of his attention to developing and building the Mark II and Mark III armor.
As for Obadiah— There was no way Obadiah would simply stop.
Until Tony was completely dead and Stark Industries belonged entirely to him, Obadiah would never give up.
More importantly, he had almost certainly noticed the miniature Arc Reactor in Tony’s chest by now and started coveting it.
As for whether Obadiah would still become the Iron Monger just like in the movie, Roy couldn’t say for certain anymore.
Roy had killed every terrorist involved in Tony’s kidnapping.
That meant Obadiah couldn’t obtain the Mark I prototype the same way he had in the movie.
Without the Mark I prototype as a reference, it would be extremely difficult for Stark Industries’ existing engineers to construct the Iron Monger armor from scratch.
Of course, things would be different if Obadiah somehow found the Mark I components Tony had left behind in the cave.
After thinking it over briefly, Roy decided there was no point worrying about it yet.
He would deal with things as they came.
With his current strength, even if Obadiah managed to put on the Iron Monger armor, taking him down wouldn’t require much effort.
Before long, the waiter brought over Roy’s lunch.
After finishing his meal, Roy headed to the detective agency, logged onto a dark web forum, and checked the commission emails he’d recently received.
He didn’t know who most of the clients were.
But judging from the contents of their requests, none of the commissions would pass the system’s evaluation.
When Roy had first transmigrated into this world, he’d known absolutely nothing about how the system determined whether a commission qualified.
But after completing several commissions recognized by the system, he’d finally discovered a pattern.
Without exception— Every commission approved by the system was connected to an original canon character.
Just as Roy was preparing to log out of the dark web, a new commission email arrived.
The request was extremely simple.
Only one sentence.
Kill Spider-Man!
Reward: $20 million!
From a purely financial perspective, twenty million dollars to kill a single person was undeniably generous.
But when the target was Spider-Man, twenty million suddenly didn’t seem all that impressive.
Roy didn’t immediately reply.
Instead, he opened the system’s commission page.
Just like yesterday, there was only one active commission listed there—the job to serve as Tony Stark’s secret bodyguard.
No new commission had appeared.
In other words, the request to kill Spider-Man had failed the system’s evaluation.
And if the system didn’t recognize it, then there was nothing worth considering.
Without hesitation, Roy logged out of the dark web forum.
Killing Spider-Man wouldn’t be particularly difficult for him in his current state.
But killing Spider-Man for a mere twenty million dollars?
No matter how he looked at it, that simply wasn’t worth it.
For one thing, Spider-Man was one of the most famous heroes in American comics.
That also made him a potential future client.
Who knew?
Maybe one day Roy could receive a system-approved commission from Spider-Man himself.
The client hadn’t revealed their identity in the commission email.
But Roy could roughly guess who it was.
Plenty of people in New York wanted Spider-Man dead.
Very few of them, however, had the ability to casually offer twenty million dollars for the job.
If Roy’s guess was correct, the commission had most likely come from either Kingpin or Norman Osborn.
Roy hadn’t dealt with Norman Osborn yet.
Kingpin, however, was a different story.
Roy had already accepted several commissions from him.
Kingpin was certainly no good man.
But he was an extremely generous client.
So far, aside from Tony Stark, Kingpin was the client most willing to spend money.
After leaving the dark web forum, Roy took his phone out of his system storage and sent a message to his girlfriend— Gwen Stacy.
That’s right!
At this point in time, Gwen Stacy was Roy’s girlfriend.
Not the girlfriend of “Spider-Man” Peter Parker.