New York City, Central Park
The Astrologer sat on a wrought-iron bench in Central Park, absently watching people passing by amid all the pigeons that waddled underfoot. His juvenile accomplices that Natasha had a run-in with months earlier had been by to see him on their way to school, but the only advisement he’d given them today was on choosing Halloween costumes that would best serve their horoscopes. After they left, he had grown deeply contemplative. The stars were aligning in an intriguing fashion and he did not know how they would bode. Suddenly, one of his insights hit him and he remembered who he agreed he would contact about it – for a small retainer that kept him honest between such insights. He crawled off his bench and jogged in short spurts of activity until he reached a payphone on the edge of the park. He felt around the pockets on his mangy coat until he found a dime for the call.
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#6
FEB 11 |
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“Smiling Faces Sometimes”
Five minutes earlier
New York City, Queens Borough
Clint stood precariously upon a wobbling, child-sized chair that threatened to give out beneath his weight at any moment.
Below, Natasha looked on in utter dread. “Oh, this is a disaster waiting to happen! Let me go get a stool from the kitchen!”
“Aww, relax hon. This’ll just take another second.”
“Another second and you’re going to fall and break something,” fretted Natasha.
“I don't think everybody’s favorite avenging archer who has survived encounters with the Hulk, Doc Doom, and the Masters of Evil, is going wind up in an emergency room from—”
“I’m worried about the chair and the crib you might fall on, not you, idiot!”
The two of them had spent the better part of the day putting together a nursery. The floor was covered with a newly laid light blue carpet that was set off by cheery white furniture. A handcrafted armoire stood against one wall and a toy trunk, next to a miniature rocking horse, was filled with stuffed animals.
“I’m not gonna fall,” Clint promised. He took a hammer and started pounding a nail through the ceiling in order to hang a mobile above the crib.
Designed by Edwin Jarvis, the mobile displayed the faces of various Avengers, such as Spider-Man, Captain America and the Vision; their colorful, hand painted countenances sure to be visually stimulating to any baby and would also help accustom the child early on to the frequent sight of strange people in masks.
“There,” said Clint, safely stepping down after it was firmly affixed overhead.
Natasha reached up to spin the mobile. Her face clouded up and she started to cry. “Oh, Clint, it’s so beautiful.”
Not as much as you are, honey, Clint thought with a contented smile. Almost six months pregnant, in a wool sweater and a pair of drawstring bell-bottom pants, and Natasha had never been more radiant.
He could not say the same for her gracefulness, however, as, with the baby drastically altering her center of gravity and her hormones further throwing off her sense of balance, she almost tripped over the rocking chair – something she never would have done a few months earlier. “Careful—” he started to say but then he remembered that the last time he pointed out her newfound clumsiness to her it made her start crying. Her emotional state was worse than ever and anything seemed to make her break down into tears these days. Clint placed a hand on her upper arm and gave it a squeeze. “So, what do you think? Do you like it all?”
With watery eyes, Natasha gazed around the room. “Well, the color scheme and furnishings are amazing. I think we did a great job, and…and…” she said, choking back tears and sniffing up.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Clint asked. “Great job means a good thing, right?”
“I know. It’s just so…beautiful…” Natasha said as tears fell.
Clint tried to change the subject to calm her down. “And you’re really okay with the baseball stuff?”
“Well…girls like baseball too.”
“What about the cowboy bedding set?” asked Clint, looking to the crib. “I know that growing up I loved cowboys—the Two-Gun Kid was my favorite—but I don’t know if it’s—”
“No, it’s fine,” Natasha cut in. “We can…leave it for now,” she said with one final sniff.
“Okay,” Clint agreed without any at all further need of convincing. He would be glad to get off of the eggshells. He watched Natasha’s face to see if her smile would come back. He’d seen far too little of it of late.
They quickly agreed, between a hug and a kiss, to go make a snack in the kitchen. The route to the kitchen still felt strange and foreign to them in this new house. After Zodiac had found them in their old place, they gave it up. They had tried staying at Avengers Mansion for just a few weeks, but it did not feel right to raise the baby there, so they had rented this townhouse under assumed names.
No sooner had Natasha fetched the bread out of the bread box when the phone rang.
“Hello?” Natasha answered. “Oh, hi Wanda! What? Someone called for us at the Mansion? Is it the Astrologer? Yes, transfer the call! Hello, Astrologer. Yes, I’m listening.”
Clint stood there, holding a bag of chips in his hands and trying to open it without crinkling the bag too loudly. Natasha hushed him a few times and he slunk further away to eat his chips, waiting patiently until Natasha was done listening and off the phone. “Well?” he asked.
“I know where Zodiac will be tonight,” she said.
October 28, 1971, Thursday, late evening
New York City, Midtown
The helicopter touched down on the lit-up landing pad atop the Chanin Building on 42nd Street. Two men in flak jackets and helmets, carrying customized assault rifles, exited the helicopter first. The third man to exit the helicopter wore a navy blue business suit, unusually attired only that he was wearing a blindfold. This handicap did not seem to slow him down at all as he turned away from the 56 story drop to the street below and headed straight for the roof access to the building with his two armed guards in tow. He paused only long enough to allow them to check the door for him and then, once inside, the door to the stairwell.
Two floors below, they exited the stairwell and found the door to the abandoned observatory that should have been locked unlocked. Inside, some of the equipment of the old observatory remained, covered in dusty sheets. Standing between these relics of an earlier decade were six men in suits holding M16 assault rifles and a seventh man in a brown suit who was unarmed and wearing a gold mask of a bull’s head.
“Only two guards?” Taurus, the bull-masked man, asked. ”You trust me more than I thought.”
“I’ll trust my men can handle yours if it came to that, but you did not ask me to come to New York City for a shootout,” Libra, the blindfolded man, said.
“No, I asked for this meeting so you can tell me what you know about a possible alien invasion,” Taurus said.
“You know?” Libra asked with surprise.
“I didn’t for certain until now. I have heard things, though; horoscopes that hint at some impending peril from the stars themselves. As the current holder of the Zodiac Key, only you might have gleaned more concrete knowledge.”
“And why should I be sharing this with you instead of the entire Zodiac?”
“Because I—” Taurus began to say but he stopped and looked to the door to the room as it burst open. There was a blur of green that flew through the room and created a powerful breeze that made the room’s dusty sheets fly about like ghosts.
“Quicksilver! Shoot him!” Libra shouted, but by then four of the eight guards had already had their weapons snatched out of their hands. Of the remaining four, two fired wildly and only Libra’s two guards managed to anticipate Quicksilver’s path through the room and force him to find cover.
Or so they assumed until everyone heard the grinding of mechanical parts stirring to life after years of disuse.
“He’s found the controls for the observatory dome!” Taurus shouted. ”Close it quick or the—”
The warning came too late as a gunshot cracked off from above. Hawkeye’s custom arquebus fired a canister into the room below, one that quickly began belching huge clouds of black smoke into the air.
Some of the armed guards noticed Hawkeye descending into the room on a cable unwinding from the winch attachment on his arquebus, but whenever they tried to aim for him they found their guns jamming.
“The Scarlet Witch is in here somewhere!” Libra shouted after hearing some of the men complaining. “It’s time to upgrade to better options,” he added more quietly as he held out his hand and the Zodiac Key appeared in it.
“I did not come unprepared either,” Taurus said. He pulled out a small device from a pocket and pressed a button on it. In response, what had appeared to be a huge projector in the room whirred to life. Mechanical limbs unfolded from inside the projector and it became a giant robot. A blast of compressed air came from the robot and dispersed enough of the black smoke that Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye were all visible. While Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch attended to the robot, Hawkeye stood opposite Libra and had his arquebus squarely aimed at him.
“Put down the Key, Libra,” Hawkeye said.
“Do you really think you’re faster on the trigger than a mystical artifact?” Libra asked, unfazed and sarcastic.
“No…” Hawkeye said.
“But he doesn’t have to be!” Black Widow said. Her black uniform was stretched tight over her stomach, but the electricity-firing bracelet she wore on the right hand pointed at Libra’s back seemed to fit just fine. Taurus was backing away but Black Widow wouldn’t have that. ”Stay where you are, Taurus!” she yelled, pointing her other hand at him.
The robot collapsed on the other side of the room with a terrific amount of noise. When the noise from that and the ongoing battle subsided somewhat, Libra said calmly, “I’m listening. I presume you engineered this stand-off to talk?”
“I think it’s crazy,” Hawkeye said, “but the Widow wants to ask you two something.”
“How would you like a truce?” Black Widow asked.
“I'm still listening,” Libra said. “Why would I want a truce?”
“Because something big is happening,” Black Widow answered. ”Bigger than whatever plans you have for world domination or making a boatload of money or whatever motivates you personally, and bigger than my desire to kick Taurus' butt right now, or yours if you had anything to do with my kidnapping as well. An alien invasion fleet is heading towards Earth. We have no idea when it will get here, but some of their advance scouts are here already.”
“You want us to fight for you?” Taurus asked as if aghast at the notion.
“We don't expect you to get too altruistic, but there are other things you could do to help. You seem to have a lot of hi-tech and mystical gadgets that you keep using against us. Maybe you could let us have the ones you already know can't defeat us and we could use those to help us fight.”
“I don't think Taurus likes that idea,” Hawkeye said, keeping an eye on both master villains. ”I say we go with my idea–haul them both off to jail and take as much of their toys as we want while they rot in a jail cell.”
“And waste precious energy on us instead of preparing for the more serious foe,” Libra countered. ”I see why your wife has made the offer she has, Hawkeye, and, whether you believe me or not, I had nothing to do with your kidnapping, Black Widow. Taurus overstepped his bounds when he arranged that. Cancer was in charge of the cartel at that time and I believe he did not have Cancer's authorization.”
“None of that tells me what we came here to find out, Libra,” Black Widow said.
By now, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch had dealt with both the robot and all eight guards. The remaining Avengers, Spider-Man and the Black Knight, showed up hauling in unconscious back-up guards that had apparently been stationed elsewhere in the building.
“Are we in the wrong room?” Spider-Man asked as he added three guards to the pile Quicksilver had made. ”This sounds more like a book discussion group than a battle with Zodiac.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Spider-Man,” Libra said, ”and Black Widow–I will consider your suggestion.” With that, a bright flash of light burst forth from the Zodiac Key causing the Avengers to step back and shield their eyes. When the light faded, Libra and Taurus were gone.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Hawkeye said.
“No, I think it was promising,” Black Widow countered. “If we can find common ground with our enemies, maybe we won’t have supervillains to fight anymore someday.”
“Who’ll read my comic books then?” Spider-Man quipped.
October 28, 1971. Thursday, later that same night
Somewhere under New York City
The Mad Thinker was standing deep in his underground lair in front of a bank of computers when the security alarm sounded, signaling intruders. Perhaps it was the Fantastic Four, he thought in a panic, though he could not grasp just how they could have located him. He quickly moved over to a keyboard to activate all his defenses—something that would have been automated at his old bases.
His eyes moved searchingly from one small black and white monitor to another, trying to see just who he was dealing with. The criminal genius gritted his teeth at being reduced to such second-grade equipment. His previous devices, including his famous Awesome Android, had all been confiscated in previous arrests by law enforcement. What now served as the current main computer of his base, a ten-year-old Cray that was barely adequate to his needs, was constantly overheating due to a faulty cooling unit almost as large as the supercomputer itself and, which to his great dismay, kept leaking Freon. He ignored the ether smell of it as he targeted a hallway-mounted machine gun armed with armor-piercing rounds on a doorway that motion detectors indicated the intruders would soon emerge from.
“Where are they? Who are they?” he wondered aloud, running his hands through his long, tussled hair.
“I’m quite alone, actually,” came a voice from directly behind him. “Your instruments detected multiple intruders only because I move rather fast.”
The Thinker twisted around with a start to see a distinguished looking man with short-cropped brown hair dressed in a suit and tie. “Who the devil are you?” the Thinker asked angrily.
The man walked forward boldly and calmly, extending his hand as if he were showing up for a business meeting.”The name is Kline.”
The Thinker hesitated and looked at the hand. “I would need more time to do proper calculations, but off the top of my head there is almost a 50-percent chance that you are here to do me harm and almost a 5-percent chance that you are here to hire me. I will hope it is one or the other, as the nearly 5-percent chance that you are just here to impress me would make me rather sad.”
“You should also be thankful that my motives do not match your first calculation,” Kline said calmly, “as I doubt your defenses could even have stopped a common burglar.”
The Thinker smiled coldly. “I am all-too aware of the deficiencies in my equipment. Since you are too, that makes me curious why you would hire me. I calculate a 75-percent chance that you wish me to kill someone. I so hate mercenary work, but I do need the funds.”
“You will acquire funds and the superior technology you are accustomed to,” Kline responded in his quick, smooth manner, “once the Black Widow is dead.”
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To Be Continued...
Next: In Black Widow #7: What is Kline’s plan? What will the Mad Thinker do? How many supervillains will he need to do it? What does it all have to do with Vietnam and ice cream? Find out these answers and more in “If You Could Read My Mind!”
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