Most powerful Hunter in Marvel Universe - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Spy and the Assassin

The beach was perfect—almost suspiciously so. Golden sand stretched for miles, warm water lapped at the shore with rhythmic precision, and the morning sun painted everything in shades of amber and gold that belonged on postcards. A handful of tourists dotted the landscape, far enough apart to suggest privacy without the isolation being absolute.

Veer had been running his morning training routine when he first noticed her. Ten kilometers along the beach, pushing his enhanced physiology to maintain speed without drawing attention. Just a young man jogging, nothing unusual, certainly nothing superhuman about maintaining a pace that would exhaust Olympic athletes.

She’d been sitting on a beach towel, reading a book, wearing a sundress that struck the perfect balance between modest and eye-catching. Red hair caught the sunlight, skin that suggested someone who spent time outdoors but not excessively so, and the kind of natural beauty that made you look twice without being obvious about it.

Their eyes had met. She’d smiled. He’d smiled back.

And now, thirty minutes later, they were sitting at a beachside café, sharing coffee and what was supposed to be casual conversation between strangers who’d happened to meet in a beautiful location.

Except nothing about this was casual.

Veer played his part perfectly—or what he thought was perfectly. The interested young man, recently wealthy, enjoying his retirement, happy to talk to an attractive woman who’d shown interest. He let his eyes wander, appreciated her appearance, asked questions about her travels and her story with the kind of attention that suggested genuine interest.

She played her part too. Tourist, former military—Army, she’d said, medical corps—now traveling on saved money before settling into whatever came next. Smart, funny, with just enough vulnerability in her backstory to be interesting without being tragic.

They were both lying, and they both knew it, but the game required pretending otherwise.

At least, that’s what Veer thought was happening.

Natasha—she’d introduced herself as Natalie, but Veer knew better—watched him across the small table and felt the familiar satisfaction of a successful approach mixed with something unexpected: confusion.

The target was responding exactly as predicted. His eyes tracked her movements. His body language showed interest. His conversation stayed engaged and reciprocal. All the standard markers of attraction and successful social engineering were present.

But something was off.

The lust was there—she could read it in the way his gaze occasionally dropped to her neckline, in the slight dilation of his pupils when she laughed, in the way he leaned forward when she spoke. But it felt… performative. Like he was going through motions he thought he should go through rather than genuinely experiencing them.

It was the difference between someone who wanted you and someone who was pretending to want you because that’s what the script demanded.

Natasha had enough experience to know the difference. And right now, Paramveer Singh was reading his lines competently but without the authentic emotional investment that separated good acting from great acting.

Which meant either he was incredibly disciplined—possible, given his background—or he knew exactly what she was doing and was playing along for reasons of his own.

She let the conversation continue for another few minutes, trading travel stories and favorite beaches, before making a decision. Sometimes the direct approach worked better than continued subterfuge.

Natasha set down her coffee cup and met his eyes directly, her entire demeanor shifting from friendly tourist to something harder and more focused.

“You know who I am, right?”

The change in Veer’s expression was immediate and almost comical. The mask of interested tourist dropped away like someone had flipped a switch, replaced by something more genuine—resignation mixed with what might have been relief.

“SHIELD agent,” he said flatly, not bothering to phrase it as a question.

So much for maintaining cover. Natasha felt a moment of professional frustration—she’d been made faster than expected—but also curiosity. How had he identified her? Her cover was solid. Her documentation was flawless. There shouldn’t have been any tells.

“How did you figure it out?” she asked, genuinely wanting to know. Understanding how targets read her would help improve future operations.

Veer leaned back in his chair, his posture relaxing now that the pretense was gone. “I trusted my face,” he said with a slight smile. “There’s no way a woman who looks like you approaches someone like me on a random beach unless there’s an agenda. I’m not bad-looking, but I’m not ‘spontaneously approach me’ attractive either.”

Despite herself, Natasha laughed. It was honest, unplanned, the kind of genuine amusement that rarely surfaced during operations. “You’re selling yourself short. You’re actually quite handsome. The mysterious young man jogging on a beach at sunrise? That’s basically a romance novel setup.”

“I’ll take the compliment,” Veer said, “but I know what I am. So tell me—why did you approach me? I already left the United States. I’m not operating in your jurisdiction anymore. And isn’t SHIELD’s job to defend America against threats? I’m in India, bothering no one.”

Natasha considered how much truth to offer. The recording from the hotel room was classified. Admitting SHIELD had been surveilling him would only increase his paranoia. But complete denial would insult his intelligence.

“We do defend against threats,” she said carefully. “But we also assess potential ones. Understanding capabilities, intentions, connections. You’re a person of interest, Mr. Singh. Someone who accomplished something remarkable in Afghanistan and then disappeared. We like to know who’s operating at your level.”

“And you couldn’t just send Agent Coulson back for a follow-up chat?”

So he remembered Coulson. Remembered the encounter clearly enough to reference it casually. That suggested the interaction had made an impression—probably not a positive one.

“Agent Coulson has his approach,” Natasha said with a slight smile. “I have mine. His involves being official and somewhat threatening. Mine involves coffee on beautiful beaches. Which would you prefer?”

“Coffee is better,” Veer admitted. “But you still haven’t answered why you’re really here. This isn’t just assessment. You want something specific.”

Time to shift strategy. Natasha leaned forward slightly, her expression becoming more earnest, more vulnerable. “I’m here to make you an offer. Join SHIELD. Not as a regular agent—we understand you value your independence—but as a consultant. High-level threats, specific missions, generous compensation. You’d work when you wanted, on assignments you chose, with resources most mercenaries dream about.”

“I’m retired.”

“You’re twenty-two,” Natasha countered. “That’s not retirement. That’s barely starting your career.”

“I have enough money to never work again. That’s retired by any definition.”

She tried several more angles over the next twenty minutes. Financial incentives that would make most people’s eyes water. The opportunity to choose missions with genuine moral value. Access to SHIELD’s technology and resources. The chance to work with other enhanced individuals, to be part of something larger than himself.

Veer rejected each approach politely but firmly. His position was consistent: he was done with mercenary work, done with killing, done with putting himself in situations where violence was the primary solution.

It was frustrating in a way Natasha wasn’t used to. Most targets had pressure points—ego, greed, fear, ambition. Singh seemed immune to all of them, protected by the simple fact that he’d already achieved his financial goals and wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

Finally, she tried a different tactic. One that appealed to morality rather than self-interest.

“If you just want retirement,” Natasha said, “I can respect that. But your abilities—the things you can do—couldn’t they help others? You mentioned during your conversation with Tony Stark that these powers can be taught.”

Veer’s expression changed instantly, hardening into something guarded and dangerous. “You were listening. The hotel room.”

No point denying it now. “Standard protocol for enhanced individuals. We like to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Apparently.” Veer’s voice was cold. “So this isn’t about recruiting me at all. This is about the Nen techniques. You want me to teach SHIELD how to create super soldiers.”

Natasha didn’t bother pretending otherwise. “We want to help people. Soldiers who could survive situations that would kill normal humans. Agents who could save lives that would otherwise be lost. Is that so terrible?”

“Soldiers,” Veer repeated, his tone making it clear what he thought of that justification. “Agents. Government weapons with better capabilities. You’re talking about creating an army of enhanced individuals under SHIELD control.”

“We’re talking about giving good people the tools to fight bad people more effectively.”

“And who decides who’s good and who’s bad?” Veer shook his head. “No. I’m not teaching Nen to anyone. Not SHIELD, not the military, not anyone.”

Natasha studied his face, looking for any crack in that resolve, any opening she could exploit. She found none. Whatever combination of factors had led to this decision, they were deeply held and not subject to easy manipulation.

Time for a final gambit. One that was risky but might pay off if he had any compassion left under the professional mercenary exterior.

“My mission was to recruit you or extract information about your abilities,” Natasha said quietly, letting genuine vulnerability enter her voice—or what appeared to be genuine vulnerability, which was almost the same thing. “I’ve failed at both. Mission failure in my line of work has… consequences. Particularly when the target identifies you immediately and makes you burn your cover.”

She let that hang in the air, watching his reaction. “If I go back empty-handed, it raises questions about my effectiveness. My reliability. Whether I’m still useful.” She managed a small, self-deprecating smile. “So I have a proposal. Let me stay. Not to spy, not to convince you—just to observe. Let me file reports about your daily routine, your activities, something to justify the resources SHIELD invested in this operation. In exchange, I won’t bother you about recruitment or teaching or any of it. I’ll just… exist nearby. Verification that you’re really just retired and not secretly building terrorist networks or whatever headquarters imagines.”

It was a good lie. Vulnerable without being pathetic, logical without being obviously manipulative, and offering him something he might actually want—a SHIELD agent who’d agreed to leave him alone.

Veer looked at her for a long moment, and Natasha couldn’t quite read his expression. Suspicion, certainly. But also something else. Calculation, maybe. Or consideration of angles she hadn’t anticipated.

“You’re lying,” he said finally, and her heart sank slightly. “Mission failure isn’t death for someone at your level. SHIELD doesn’t execute agents for unsuccessful recruitment attempts. And even if they did, you’re too skilled to be truly worried about consequences from one blown operation.”

Damn. He was better at reading people than she’d given him credit for.

But before she could pivot to another approach, Veer continued: “However, your presence here gives me an idea. A trade, if you will.”

“I’m listening.”

“You can stay,” Veer said. “Watch me, file your reports, do whatever you need to do to satisfy SHIELD that I’m not a threat. But in exchange, you teach me.”

Natasha blinked. “Teach you what?”

“How to be a spy.” Veer leaned forward, and now his expression was intense, focused. “I have power. Raw strength, speed, abilities that make me dangerous in direct confrontation. But I’m terrible at everything else. Acting, infiltration, reading people, maintaining covers. All the skills that make someone like you effective—I don’t have any of them.”

He gestured at the café, at their failed attempt at casual conversation. “You made me in minutes because I couldn’t maintain a simple cover. I didn’t check my hotel room for surveillance. I can kill three hundred people in a night, but I can’t blend into a crowd or maintain a false identity for more than a few hours. That’s a problem.”

“And you think I should fix that problem?” Natasha asked, intrigued despite herself. “Why would I help you become better at avoiding SHIELD?”

“Because it’s a better deal than you’re going to get otherwise,” Veer pointed out. “I won’t teach you Nen. I won’t join SHIELD. But if you train me in tradecraft, you get to stay close, observe me, and SHIELD gets regular reports on my activities and capabilities. You learn what I can do by watching me train. I learn how to not be an amateur at everything except fighting. Everyone wins.”

It was, Natasha had to admit, not a terrible proposal from his perspective. He got training from one of the world’s best intelligence operatives. SHIELD got direct observation of an enhanced individual’s capabilities and training methods. And she got to maintain proximity to the target while appearing to provide value to the organization.

The question was whether headquarters would approve.

Actually, no. The question was whether she could sell headquarters on approving it. And given Fury’s obsession with acquiring information about these teachable abilities, having an agent embedded directly in Singh’s daily routine was probably worth whatever training she provided in return.

“I’d need to clear it with my superiors,” Natasha said. “This isn’t a decision I can make unilaterally.”

“Of course. Make your call. I’ll wait.” Veer signaled the waiter for more coffee, looking completely relaxed about having just negotiated with a SHIELD agent.

Natasha pulled out her phone and stepped away from the table, finding a quiet corner of the café where her conversation wouldn’t be overheard. She dialed Fury’s direct line.

He answered on the second ring. “Status?”

“Target identified me immediately,” Natasha reported without preamble. “Cover blown, recruitment refused, information extraction refused. He’s aware we were surveilling his conversation with Stark.”

“Wonderful.” Fury’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Please tell me you got something useful before he kicked you out.”

“He made a counter-offer. He’ll allow me to remain in proximity and observe his activities—including his training with these abilities—in exchange for me teaching him intelligence tradecraft. Specifically: acting, infiltration, cover maintenance, reading people.”

Silence on the other end. Then: “He wants you to train him to be a spy.”

“Essentially, yes. He admits he has physical capabilities but lacks the subterfuge skills. He sees it as a trade—I teach him, he lets me watch him, SHIELD gets regular reports on his capabilities and methods.”

More silence. Natasha could practically hear Fury’s mind working through the implications. “You’d be giving a potentially hostile enhanced individual the tools to better avoid detection and surveillance.”

“I’d also be in position to observe his training, learn his limitations, and maintain regular contact. Sir, this might be the only access to information about these abilities that we’re going to get. He’s made it clear he won’t teach Nen techniques to anyone, but if I’m watching him train them, we learn by observation.”

“And you think you can maintain operational security while teaching him? Not accidentally reveal information that compromises SHIELD?”

“I’ve trained assets in hostile territories before. I can teach him what he wants without exposing anything critical.” Natasha kept her voice confident. “And sir, he’s going to learn these skills eventually. Better that we’re the ones teaching him and shaping what he learns than having him figure it out on his own or learn from someone with less friendly intentions.”

Another pause. Then: “Approved. On the condition that you maintain comprehensive reporting. Daily updates on his activities, capabilities, training methods, everything. And Romanoff? If he makes any move toward teaching others these abilities, or if you discover he’s connected to hostile organizations, you extract immediately and we reassess.”

“Understood, sir.”

“And one more thing. Don’t actually make him good at being a spy. Teach him enough to satisfy the arrangement, but maintain our advantage. We want observation, not a fully trained intelligence operative with superhuman abilities running around.”

Natasha smiled slightly. “I’ll find the appropriate balance.”

She ended the call and returned to the table, where Veer was sipping his fresh coffee and watching tourists pass by with apparent contentment.

“SHIELD approved,” she said, sitting back down. “I can stay and teach you. But I’ll be filing regular reports on everything I observe, including your training. That’s non-negotiable.”

“Fair enough,” Veer agreed. “I’m not doing anything secret. Just training to get stronger and learning how to not be terrible at subterfuge. Both of which SHIELD would probably prefer anyway—better a strong person you can monitor than a weaker one who can disappear.”

“That was more or less headquarters’ logic,” Natasha admitted. She extended her hand across the table. “So we have an arrangement? I teach you tradecraft, you let me observe your training, and we both try to make this less awkward than it has to be?”

Veer shook her hand, and Natasha noted the strength in his grip—controlled, but she could feel the potential power there. “Arrangement. Though I should warn you, I’m probably a terrible student. The whole ‘patience’ and ‘subtle approach’ thing doesn’t come naturally.”

“I’ve trained worse,” Natasha assured him, though privately she wondered if that was true. Most of her previous assets had been normal humans with normal limitations. Teaching someone with superhuman abilities and no inherent sense of subtlety might prove challenging.

But that was fine. Challenging was interesting. And interesting was better than sitting in Prague tracking boring weapons deals.

“So,” Veer said, finishing his coffee, “when do we start?”

“Now.” Natasha stood up, pulling money from her purse to cover their check. “First lesson: when you’re being surveilled—which you currently are, by the way, SHIELD has two additional agents watching from separate locations—you don’t immediately look around to try to spot them. That confirms you know they’re there.”

Veer had started to turn his head but caught himself. “Where?”

“North, approximately forty meters, man with camera pretending to photograph birds. West, beach towel, woman with a book who hasn’t turned a page in twenty minutes.” Natasha didn’t look at either location, delivering the information while appearing to search her purse for something. “You learn to notice without appearing to notice. Peripheral vision, environmental awareness, pattern recognition.”

“That’s… actually really useful,” Veer said, carefully not looking at either location she’d mentioned. “I can sense people with my abilities, but that’s different from actually understanding surveillance.”

“Very different. Your abilities make you dangerous in combat. My training will make you dangerous everywhere else.” She headed toward the exit, and he followed. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and lesson two is about to start.”

“What’s lesson two?”

“How to have a conversation with someone while you’re being recorded, and making sure the recording only captures what you want it to capture.”

Veer laughed, a genuine sound of amusement. “You know what? This retirement might actually be more interesting than I thought.”

Natasha smiled, already planning the training curriculum and the reports she’d need to file. “That’s what everyone says right before things get complicated.”

They walked off the beach together, an unlikely partnership formed from mutual necessity and competing agendas, neither quite trusting the other but both willing to see where this arrangement led.

Behind them, the two SHIELD agents Natasha had mentioned maintained their observation, reporting back that Romanoff had successfully established contact and was proceeding with the secondary approach.

And in a bunker in California, Nick Fury reviewed the reports and allowed himself a rare smile. Sometimes the best intelligence wasn’t stolen or coerced. Sometimes it was traded. And if teaching one enhanced individual tradecraft meant gaining comprehensive knowledge of potentially world-changing abilities?

That was a trade worth making.

The game continued. The players had simply agreed on new rules.

And everyone involved was pretending they had more control than they actually did.