Shiller succeeded. Natasha knew things were bad when she got Batman’s call, but she still went.
Upon entering the office again, Arkham Batman was standing behind the desk, while Green Arrow was sitting at the desk, leisurely sipping coffee with his legs up.
"Regarding the CEO, I’m very sorry," Natasha had to say, "It was a botched road interception, the special team can take responsibility for it. We’ll send soone to visit him."
"That’s it?" Green Arrow stared at Natasha’s face and said, "He almost didn’t make it."
"But he’s still alive and well."
"Okay, I shouldn’t expect any humanity from you agents." Green Arrow looked at Arkham Batman, seemingly waiting for an explanation.
"You don’t need to look at him." Natasha walked over and stood beside Arkham Batman, saying, "He is protecting not because he’s as lacking in humanity as I am, or because he has any issue with you, but because you can’t sleep with him, and I can. Or can you?"
Green Arrow’s expression slightly cracked. He looked at Arkham Batman with a face full of "Are you serious?"
Seeing Arkham Batman not responding, Green Arrow stood up, slapped his hands heavily on the table and said, "No way, Batman. You absolutely cannot sleep with a Slavic woman nad Natasha Romanoff! Aren’t you afraid she’s KGB?!"
Arkham Batman still said nothing. Green Arrow could only grit his teeth and say, "If you’re being president just to sell your body more broadly, you win."
"Hold on." Natasha was simply smashing the pot when she said, "What do you want the CIA to take responsibility for? I guess you want him to fire , but sorry, that’s not going to happen. If you really feel cheated, next ti we can include you."
Green Arrow really couldn’t listen anymore. He roared at Arkham Batman, "You’ve been bewitched by this damn Russian Black Widow! You’ll never see who really cares for you. Batman, you’ll be alone till the end!"
Natasha dug at her ears and waved towards the door. Several agents ca in and took Green Arrow away.
"’Include him’?" Arkham Batman turned his head to look at Natasha.
"Is this really the ti to discuss this?" Natasha seed very irritated, saying, "A week’s ti is too long; can you solve what you need to solve quickly?!"
"So you are confident in taking down a detective in less ti." Arkham Batman still maintained a calm tone, saying, "From start to now, how many words have you exchanged with him?"
"Oh co on, I won’t actually have any physical contact with any Shiller other than to kill them." Natasha leaned against the window saying, "Us not speaking much isn’t surprising, what’s surprising is the few words we did say had nothing to do with philosophy, sociology or psychology. It’s like the sun ca out from the west."
Arkham Batman seed to think of sothing funny. He sat back behind the desk saying, "You need to help reassure Wonder Woman. What I an is, at least make her feel I have my reasons for doing this."
"You’re truly a bad person." Natasha unhesitatingly cursed.
"No, I’m stating facts. I just can’t tell her this personally because she won’t believe ."
"How do you know?"
"Because I’ve already depleted all her trust through previous actions against the Amazon. Now she won’t believe I would do anything good for her."
"Why did you do it then?"
"I believe you can see she has so good feelings towards , but that isn’t love. I also don’t think love will blossom between us. I hope her stance towards the human race isn’t based on good feelings towards because that is too fragile. It’s a serious unstable factor for what I’m going to do later."
"Then why do you want to patch things up for you?"
"It’s not patching things up for . On the contrary, it’s creating an expectation that will eventually be broken."
"You’re worse than I imagined." Natasha said, "You persuade the whole world to make her believe in you, then give her the worst result. That won’t just make those good feelings vanish but also make her hate you. You want to know if she’ll end up hating the human race because of this. Green Arrow is right, you’re truly evil."
"What’s more curious is, what position do you have to accuse ?" Arkham Batman looked at her and asked.
"I have the position." Natasha said, "I can responsibly say I don’t toy with anyone’s feelings."
"Including Bucky Barnes?"
"Yes." Natasha firmly stated, "I can guarantee I haven’t tested, manipulated, or deceived the feelings of any of my lovers, including Tony Stark."
"Shiller is right." Arkham Batman suddenly said, "You’re really not a good agent, ma’am. You’re too idealistic."
"Since you know about my birth country and growing ti, you should know why I beca this way. I’m starting to feel grateful for my origin." After saying this, Natasha turned around and left.
Arkham Batman stared at her back, not looking like he saw a beautiful and dangerous Black Widow, but rather an impetuous Russian girl rushing headlong into the Siberian Snowfield.
"It’s almost quitting ti, boss. Any plans for the evening?" In the office, agents gathered in groups of three or four. One sunny-looking young man smiled at Natasha and asked.
"No, I have a drinking date." Natasha said while tidying up her belongings, "You all better not party till dawn; we have work tomorrow."
"Those words go for you too, boss." A girl with small freckles deliberately stretched her head over Natasha’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, "Detective Rodriguez an easy date?"
Natasha smacked her head with a folder, and she ran off screaming, then Natasha scanned the whole office with eagle-like eyes, "Anyone who doesn’t want to leave, stay for overti. I’ll make sure you pull an all-nighter."
The crowd dispersed.
Natasha arrived at the adjacent office, where Shiller was sitting in front of the computer screen looking at sothing. She quietly walked over and noticed that it was the Amazon country’s official website. Shiller was browsing through tourism promotional images, large expanses of forest and rivers viewed from afar.
The rich green reflected in Shiller’s pupils. For the first ti, Natasha realized that if Shiller had green eyes, he would look even more like a demon.
"Didn’t you go to party with them?" Shiller asked without turning his head. He was supporting his chin with his thumb and had his index finger on his lips, very focused on the computer screen.
"I said I had a drink date with you, so I blew them off."
"I’m working overti, thank you."
"Why are you looking at this?"
"I’m searching for information about Paradise Island," Shiller said while flipping through images, "but they seem very wary of that na, and it’s not even ntioned on Amazon’s official website. Why do you think that is?"
"What does that have to do with our work?"
"We need to stall them for a week, and the key is to hold off Wonder Woman. Relying on force alone won’t work; I want to catch her on sothing."
Natasha stood behind him and rubbed her forehead. Shiller turned to glance at her and said, "If you don’t want to go to the party, go back and rest. I’ll probably be here until dawn."
"No," Natasha said, "I just want to know, how did you manage to talk about so many things with , all about business?"
Shiller looked back at her with confusion again.
"The psychiatrist is next door," Shiller said, pointing his thumb at the adjacent wall.
Natasha stood with hands on her hips, not saying a word, just looking at him. Shiller remained focused on the computer screen, gazing at it for about ten minutes before suddenly saying, "What do you think about this hypothesis?"
Natasha leaned in to take a look; it was a blog analyzing national relations. It ntioned that in the sumr of 2004, on a wrecked tourist ship within Amazon territory, all 69 females survived while all 46 males died. Despite this, it is regarded as a miracle in rescue history, because judging by the condition of the wreck and the river’s water level, no one should have survived.
The blogger claid the gender ratio among survivors in this case was suspiciously skewed. He interpreted it as a conspiracy aid at a biologist aboard the ship, but ultimately, there was no conclusion.
"Maybe Wonder Woman saved them," Natasha said. "Given normal rescue efforts, these people couldn’t have survived. But if it was Wonder Woman, it makes sense."
"But Wonder Woman couldn’t have only saved the won, and the tiline of this case is very clear; Wonder Woman wasn’t in Amazon at the ti. I think it might be people from Paradise Island who did it. You know they’re a matriarchal society, right?"
Shiller paused for a mont before saying, "To be accurate, Paradise Island has only females."
"How do they reproduce then? Even if they can create embryos out of thin air, what if they give birth to a male?"
"They would be sent elsewhere," Shiller said, "That’s not important. What is important is, if the international community found out Amazon had a severe gender bias during their rescue operations, what do you think would happen?"
"Are you planning to use this to threaten Wonder Woman?"
"Enough to keep her quiet for a couple of days, right?"
Natasha recalled Arkham Batman’s request for him, deciding to let Shiller play the bad guy. She said, "Then give it a try. If she gets too distraught, I can go comfort her."
"No rush." Shiller suddenly switched moods, saying, "Weren’t we saying we’d go for a drink? Let’s go."
Natasha was stunned and looked at Shiller as if looking at a giant trap. She even stepped back two paces and carefully scanned his face before hesitantly pursing her lips after confirming he hadn’t been replaced.
"Aren’t you working overti?"
"I can co early tomorrow."
"You better not be planning to get a Slavic girl drunk."
"I promise I’m not."
They went down the lift to the underground parking lot. Natasha said, "You know we can’t just casually go to bars in our line of work, right?"
"Of course, I had a friend recomnd a place," Shiller said, getting into the driver’s seat, and Natasha got into the passenger seat. Shiller skillfully ignited the car and soon arrived at an underground bar.
The music in the dance floor was so loud that no one noticed the two newcors. Natasha saw many people with signs of training in there, possibly all officers and agents, and seed to even spot one of her subordinates.
Too curious about Shiller’s purpose for drinking, Natasha didn’t bother with them. They sat down at the bar. The bartender seed montarily stunned by Natasha’s beauty, imdiately called over a companion, and pointed at where Natasha and Shiller were sitting, whispering.
The drinks were quickly mixed. Natasha took the glass, initially wanting to peer into it, but ended up catching the light refracted off the glass illuminating Shiller’s side face. The light from below highlighted the lashes under his forehead.
Natasha took a big gulp of her drink. The next second, she felt dizzy and lightheaded.
In her hazy vision, she saw Shiller smiling at her, then saw him take out a lighter and wave it in front of her with the fla. She heard Shiller ask, "What did Batman tell you?"
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