Natasha had never liked Stark from the very beginning. She actually hated everything he represented, the sheltered and yet dissolute life of the rich and famous. Those people knew nothing of real life. They had never been through real hardships. She wasn't even comparing them against what had happened to her in the red room. Her own childhood had been special in all the wrong ways. She understood that it wasn't normal in any stretch of the imagination. More than that, Stark didn't know how hard it was for the common people. He would never be able to understand that much.
Stark's debauchery had been on the front page of any newspaper or magazine all around the world for years. It wasn't pretty. The man had been bored with too much free time on his hands and way too much money. Howard should have forced his son to do some hard work, maybe that would have taught him a lesson or two on life. Unfortunately, Stark's parents had died too early for that and at sixteen, Tony had just gone wilder than ever. Stane had not managed to rain him in. He had not tried to.
Fury had thought the kidnapping and what had happened during those three months in Afghanistan had changed the man for the best. Natasha knew that it wasn't the case. She could just feel it in her bones. Fury was her boss so when he sent her to SI to make a psychological assessment, she went. Getting a position within the company had been easy. Climbing up the ladder had not been that hard either. Men were easy to manipulate.
But Agatha Harkness had been in her way at each step. Natasha had tried to be friends with her, even flirting a little. It didn't work. Perhaps Agatha could be like a mentor to her, playing on her ego. People like to be seen as the teacher, the most knowledgeable person in the room. For a minute, it seemed that it was the way to go. That didn't last long. If the easy way would not be working, Natasha had no qualms in going the hard way.
Shield had an impressive collection of poisons and illness inducing vials. No tastes, no odours. A lot of different ways to get people out of the way. A little drop in their cup of coffee or a little sting of a needle and they would get a nasty bug, not life threatening but that would last long enough for the agent to do what they had to do. Natasha didn't like using those. She felt like she was better than that at her job. The black widow didn't use those kinds of subterfuge. She could manipulate people quite easily. Sometimes, rarely though, it had to be used just to make things go down faster.
Even though Natasha tried a lot of different ways, something always came to save Agatha Harkness at the last minute. Her coffee cup would fall down suddenly. When about to be struck by a needle, Agatha would move swiftly away. Natasha had always been a distrustful person. She never believed anyone, not even Clint. The training of the Red Room was too ingrained into her soul for that. Agatha was suspicious anyway. Natasha had to investigate her.
"What do you mean nothing?" Asked the red hair surprised.
"Shield does not keep files on normal people. We have nothing on her more than the basics."
"And she's squeaky clean I bet."
Shield had nothing on Agatha. Strictly nothing. Of course, the agency only kept on special people, agents, spies or metahuman. Harkness might have been good enough to stay under their radar. A person like that had the potential to be really useful to Shield, perhaps more than Stark would ever be. Shield was already receiving money from SI. The company never found out about it. Peggy Carter had arranged some very clever fundings.
Of course, Stark could give a lot more money and he should do so. Shield should maybe play that game a little differently. No amount of money was worth having the so-called genius permanently around. He would be a liability pretty quickly if you would ask her. He didn't want to join anyway. They were spies after all and the man was not discreet at all in anything he did. It was just not in his nature.
