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She's good.
This had been the sum total of his report on Natalia Romanova, teenage prodigy and assassin-in-training. From anyone else it was a scant accounting, but from him, notoriously skilled and still taciturn, those two words contained volumes.
In truth, Romanova was better than he'd anticipated. She was far from the first student he'd had, but she'd been the first to come close to holding her own. When playtime had finished and he'd stopped pulling punches, she'd refused to back down. He'd given her bruises for her trouble, but she'd earned his respect—Something none of the others had managed.
Also unlike all the others, he found himself actually looking forward to their sessions together.
Today, he was waiting for her in the rafters. Cloaked in shadow and perfectly still, he kept a sharp eye on the door and his muscles poised to spring.
This had been the sum total of his report on Natalia Romanova, teenage prodigy and assassin-in-training. From anyone else it was a scant accounting, but from him, notoriously skilled and still taciturn, those two words contained volumes.
In truth, Romanova was better than he'd anticipated. She was far from the first student he'd had, but she'd been the first to come close to holding her own. When playtime had finished and he'd stopped pulling punches, she'd refused to back down. He'd given her bruises for her trouble, but she'd earned his respect—Something none of the others had managed.
Also unlike all the others, he found himself actually looking forward to their sessions together.
Today, he was waiting for her in the rafters. Cloaked in shadow and perfectly still, he kept a sharp eye on the door and his muscles poised to spring.