“Interesting abilities you’ve got there.
Are you a mutant?” Natalia asked, walking up to me with a slight limp.
“No, I could give you a blood sample right now if you want.
Just a unique fighting technique,” I answered her, glancing sideways at her opponent.
Hm, looks like he’s alive too.
No, definitely alive — see, his chest is rising and falling in rhythm with his breathing.
Just knocked out.
“Uh-huh, a fighting technique,” she replied, giving Rhino a meaningful glance and licking her lower lip in a way that felt suggestive.
Or maybe it just seems suggestive to me.
Well, hormones are raging, not all the excitement from 2B’s photos has worn off yet, and now there’s adrenaline pounding through my skull too, after the fight.
Okay, stand down!
Lucian, remember — no 3D girls needed!
I’ve already got an android!
Two of them, even!
Well, the second one’s just not summoned yet.
Real women (especially Marvel women) with their mountains of baggage and issues are never going to breach my defenses!
And since that’s the case, quit staring at the redhead…
the extremely hot redhead!
And change the subject, or at least answer her, because this pause is dragging on.
“May I?” I extend my index and middle fingers toward the Widow’s shoulder.
The Widow, who’s grinning rather smugly at this point.
Okay, remember why they call her the Black Widow.
There, that’s better already!
“Go ahead,” — I could practically feel her swallowing back a teasing, cheeky “kid.” I touch her shoulder and channel a tiny pulse of my life energy into her so she can feel it and…
register the corresponding response of her own power inside her body.
In reality, yes, she’ll be able to sense it that way, confirming a similar power exists in her, but that’s all.
She won’t be able to properly sense it without a “boost” like this one, and I won’t even mention actually working with the power.
“This…” “Basically the life energy present in every living organism.
Meaning everyone has this power, but you have to master it over a long, persistent effort.
And then keep building it up through a method that isn’t exactly pleasant.
Though there are upsides too — once you’re past the first stage, the power itself starts helping your body improve,” — the last part was true, but I’m planning on blaming all my personal changes on life energy.
Sorry to every practitioner of Jo-Lan out there, but it’s necessary for the cause.
“What do you mean by that?” the Black Widow asked, intrigued.
Of course she would be — given the special services’ absolute obsession with creating superhumans, how could she not be interested in a method like this.
Though the fact that it’s a long-trained ability requiring years of development significantly lowers the value of that information.
In this world, people tend to prefer serums over training.
“During the first stage, where you just need to learn to feel the life energy — there’s nothing to it at all.
But once you’ve learned to control it and start building up its volume, the incoming life force basically helps your body develop, hit its peak condition, build muscle, extend your youth specifically and your lifespan in general.
Not indefinitely, but living twenty or thirty years longer is a pretty solid perk, same as being able to run and jump around like a spry little goat practically up to eighty, while looking no older than forty.
Though it also depends on when you started training it, and when you got through the first stages,” — I fed her a diluted version of the truth, mixed with my own cover story for the changes.
“I see, noted.
I’ll remember that — if the urge to continue this conversation ever strikes me, I might even come visit you later.
For now, though, see you around, and as a thank-you for your help and honesty…” — after which several things happened all at once.
First (and most important) — I got kissed on the cheek.
Second — a tranquilizer dart hit Rhino, still huffing and trying to get back up, right in the neck.
Third — the previously empty street got blocked off by black cars with government plates, and Natasha headed toward one of them.
Fourth — at the exact moment of the kiss, music started playing from the radio of a car parked right in my fence, one that resembled the gangster cars from two days earlier.
“Don’t say anything.
It’s the fire of love that burns, Don’t look into my eyes, Don’t say anything!” Ahem, and in Russian too, no less.
Huh.
And no, no, I don’t need hints like that!
No romance with the Black Widow!
Not now, not ever!
Although…
once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern, and it’s only at three that you start sounding the alarm.
This is only the first one, so it’s just a coincidence.
Nothing to worry about, no need to clutch your chest, Lucian.
“Um…
that’s it?” I said, surprised, glancing back and forth between Natasha and the agents ignoring me entirely as they packed up the two criminals.
“Oh, what, does the boy want something more than a kiss on the cheek?” this…
little minx said, provocatively.
“No, that’s not what I meant.
Am I just going to be let go?
No interrogation, nothing else?
So I can just go back inside my house?” — I clarified my previously misread question.
“Ah, that.
Yeah, as you can tell from that car, this was strictly a pursuit.
It just so happened that it ended up here, so you got dragged into all this purely by coincidence.
Some agents from the appropriate department will probably…
actually, most likely will swing by later, but that’s not really my department, I’m not the right profile for that.
Otherwise, they’ll talk to you, thank you, your help was very…
timely, they’ll most likely even offer you a job with us, and personally I wouldn’t mind us working together sometime.
But that’s it — you’re no more involved in this situation than your neighbors are, you just happened to be a brave boy,” she said, waving goodbye as she got into the car.
Hm…
I’m too bad at reading people to tell whether she was lying to me just now or not.
But whatever.
Home!
I’ve had enough adventure for one day.
And it was only once I got inside that I realized I was literally shaking all over…
after which the strength drained out of my trembling legs and I basically slid down the front door onto the floor.
“Yes!
Pulled it off!
And damn, that was terrifying.
Especially that horned brute!
Ugh…
better never to get mixed up in something like that again.
But I’ll keep training — if I do end up in something like that, at least I’ll be able to fight back!” I cheered myself up, standing up and noticing that my T-shirt was fit only for the trash now, torn in three separate places.
How does that even happen?
Hm…
right, yeah, my poorly controlled energy probably tore it up.
This rip on the shoulder is from Rhino’s fist whistling past…
just how hard does that monster hit, exactly?
And the third one…
I think during one of my jumps I snagged my back on something.
“Ugh, come on.
I’ve already got wardrobe problems as it is.
And now minus one more T-shirt!
Guess there’s nothing left to do but throw it out!” I said mournfully.
I take it off and head to the kitchen to toss it in the trash bag.
“Seriously?
Two whole bags of trash?
Man, what a pig I am!” I said at the sight of the accumulated garbage.
Oh, right, 2B cleaned up too, so this includes trash from the entire house.
Plus the failed leftovers of food.
Or should that be the leftovers of failed food?
So, there was nothing else to do — I had to throw on a shirt and go take out the trash…
to the mournful groans of the operatives on the other side of the equipment, the sensors from which the Widow had stuck on me and which I was now throwing out along with my T-shirt.
Something I had no idea about, and wouldn’t find out for a very long time.
Same as the fact that, after this and a string of further coincidences, the nickname “Lucky” would end up permanently stuck to me and my file at SHIELD.
For now, though, I was bracing myself for the most terrifying fight of my life, because on the phone I’d left in the house I found six missed texts and three calls, all from 2B, and she, walking up to the house, had gotten a perfectly clear view of the wrecked street, the agents (possibly SHIELD ones too), and me, throwing out the trash — including a piece of evidence, my T-shirt.
Tch, so close to getting away with it.
Uh oh, here it comes!
Yorha’s expression hasn’t changed one bit, and yet I already feel guilty and I’m bracing myself for a scolding.
Then again, my theory turned out to be right!
The assimilation percentage from that one short fight jumped all the way up to 37%!
So really, it was a controlled experiment…
now I just need to convince 2B of that.