Chapter 109: Tony: Matthew Is Weak, Pitiful, and Helpless
The office had gone quiet in the particular way that follows an irreversible sentence.
Natasha looked at Tony with an expression that communicated a precise and uncharitable opinion of him, then turned to Matthew, who had already taken his seat in the chair as though none of this was especially his problem.
"I apologize, Mr. Lawrence." She kept her voice even. "I had no intention of deceiving you."
"That's fine."
"Though you're fired." Matthew said it with a pleasant smile.
Natasha's mouth twitched.
Right. No wonder you and Tony Stark are friends. Even after finding out who I am, the two of you had practically the same reaction and said practically the same things.
She thought back over the past several days and lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "Fired. Interesting timing. I was actually just about to resign."
"Which means it's my decision to leave, not yours to remove me."
Fire me? In your dreams. I was planning to quit first.
The moment that thought settled, something physically loosened in her chest. The accumulated tension of the past several days released all at once, and she felt, involuntarily and genuinely, considerably better.
Then Ada spoke from the side.
"One thing worth mentioning, Natasha. Being fired comes with a severance package. Voluntary resignation does not."
Natasha paused.
Two seconds.
"How much is the severance?"
"Nothing," Matthew cut across immediately, and gave Ada a look that was specifically reserved for people who were supposed to be on his side. "You said it yourself. Voluntary resignation. So the severance is zero."
"And that's not the only thing. I'm going to have legal file suit against you and whoever is behind you for attempted theft of proprietary business information. By the time that's resolved, you might end up owing us money."
The loosened tension returned immediately, twice as tight as before.
She filed away whatever brief charitable thought she'd allowed herself about this man. It hadn't been warranted.
"Mr. Lawrence." Her voice settled back into something professional. "Regardless of whether you intend to pursue legal action, I do need to explain why I came here."
"I'm not here to steal anything. I came specifically to evaluate whether you have the capability and qualities to join the Avengers."
Matthew looked up with what appeared to be genuine puzzlement. "The Avengers?"
"That's right." Natasha nodded. "Most people don't have a clear sense of how vulnerable Earth actually is in the broader universe. Director Nick Fury is in the process of assembling a rapid response team made up of individuals with exceptional abilities — the Avengers Initiative. The purpose is to have a force ready to respond to threats from beyond this world when conventional military resources aren't adequate."
"So I'm one of these exceptional individuals?" Before Matthew could respond, Tony stepped in ahead of him with characteristic timing. "Is that the conclusion your organization reached?"
Natasha looked at him.
She had spent a significant amount of time embedded at Stark Industries and had developed a thorough working knowledge of Tony Stark's relationship with his own self-assessment. Renewed exposure to it had not softened her view.
She managed her response and answered with professional steadiness. "Mr. Stark, you are included in our assessment of exceptional individuals, yes. Though from our previous interactions, it was apparent that you have no interest in joining any kind of collaborative effort."
"Because I prefer working alone. I don't do partnerships." Tony glanced at her, then turned to Matthew. "You excluded."
He said it without particular deliberation.
"What we have isn't something that translates to other people."
Matthew's expression moved in a way he couldn't entirely prevent.
There were, apparently, downsides to having someone think very highly of you.
Natasha caught that line and filed it. A gap in her earlier assessment.
She ran back through it.
Unless the joke she had told the day before had turned out to be accidentally accurate.
Was Matthew actually gay?
Well.
That would explain the reaction to the joke.
There was an old saying: lies don't wound you. Truth is the blade that cuts.
In that moment, Natasha quietly updated her internal file on Matthew with a label she considered accurate and appropriately open-minded.
Matthew, sensing something specific in the quality of her attention, said flatly: "I can tell you've formed some kind of fairly rude misconception about me."
After several more exchanges that kept drifting from the point, the conversation was eventually brought back to something resembling its original purpose.
"There are two reasons I came to you specifically, Mr. Lawrence. The first is the Avengers Initiative itself. The second is that Mr. Stark actively recommended you to us."
Hearing that Tony had been the one to recommend him, Matthew looked over at Tony with something that read as genuine surprise.
Tony picked up the thread before anyone else could frame it.
"Agent, I recommended Lawrence purely because he's a decent person who likes helping people — he might be willing to put some money toward your extraordinary boy band. That's all it was. Don't read more into it."
He paused.
"If anything, when it comes to the Avengers actually going out there and protecting the world from crises, I'd argue he belongs squarely in the category of people who need protecting." He raised a hand and gestured toward Matthew. "Look at him. Money and good intentions aside, the man is weak, pitiful, and completely helpless. He has absolutely no business being an Avenger."
Natasha absorbed Tony's assessment of Matthew in silence.
The wealthy part she accepted without argument. But the rest of it.
Good intentions. Weak. Helpless.
The person Tony was describing and the person sitting three feet away from her had a similarity rating of approximately zero.
"Mr. Stark," she said, keeping her voice measured, "I'm not sure where you got the impression that he was weak and helpless, but I do need to correct a few things."
"He is not weak. He is very far from helpless."
"In fact, at this stage, Mr. Lawrence's combat capability likely exceeds yours. Suit and all."
She let her gaze move, with quiet deliberateness, toward the green impact crater spread across the exterior wall of Stark Tower across the street.
Tony's instinct was dismissal. He was not moved.
Natasha, reading this, didn't press the point directly. She asked a question instead.
"Mr. Stark. If it had been you — could you have hit a person from where we're standing, sent them across that distance, and put them into the exterior wall of your own building with enough force to produce that effect?"
She indicated the crater.
Tony looked where she was pointing. He actually thought about it.
Then he shook his head.
"No. The air resistance alone makes it impossible. To send a person across that gap without the trajectory collapsing, you'd need force comparable to firing an artillery shell. And you specifically pointed out the impact effect."
He considered it.
"At my current suit's performance level, I can't do that."
"But your friend can," Natasha said, with a quiet smile.
"Impossible."
Tony shook his head before the word finished forming. "If he were actually that capable, he wouldn't have been injured by the Green Goblin's bomb. That incident nearly put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life."
Natasha's expression didn't change. "Mr. Stark, I think there may be a misunderstanding here."
"When I say capable, I don't mean physically."
"Based on extended observation, Mr. Lawrence's strength appears to manifest through a different medium entirely. He seems capable of focusing psychic force into a material form and using it as a direct offensive tool."
"A telekinetic with a physically ordinary body isn't particularly unusual. That part fits."