"Come on, let's talk in the back," Clint said softly.
Audrey gave an almost imperceptible nod and led the way into the storeroom off the rear hall. A moment later Clint slipped in after her, without leaving a trace.
He shut the door carefully and asked, "Natasha, the Soviet Union collapsed two years ago. They shouldn't be coming after you anymore. Are your nerves just getting the better of you?"
Audrey — well, all right, Natasha — threw herself into Clint's arms, frightened. "I really did sense someone watching me. Even now I feel so uneasy. Clint, I'm scared. The USSR may have fallen, but the Red Room only changed its name — it still exists. Are we truly safe, hiding here?"
Clint was a handsome man in his twenties. He held the woman tight and said, "Natasha, I will protect you. Or — we could go to Nick Fury. He used to be my superior. Word is he's about to be promoted to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. If there's no other way, we join S.H.I.E.L.D. together."
"But Clint, you only just left S.H.I.E.L.D. not long ago. I don't want you going back to agent work you hate for my sake. Let's lie low a little longer — see how things develop." That said, Natasha leaned in and kissed him.
Maya had no interest in the not-for-kids show that followed. She'd more or less figured out who these two clowns were.
The one and only Black Widow, Natasha — and Hawkeye, Clint Barton. She'd known the two of them had a romance in their history; she just hadn't expected to run into them here. At this point Maya was one hundred percent certain: Jack had been flattering himself blind. Would Black Widow ever look twice at him? Set aside the boyfriend standing right there — with the eye for men the Red Room had drilled into her, the only way she'd give Jack a second glance was if his name weren't Jack Thompson but Jack Dawson.
Jack Dawson, the male lead of that big boat movie — now Leo's handsome face, that could catch Natasha's eye.
By the time Maya reached Central Park, Master Stick was standing alone in the little grove. "Where's Matt? I've been swamped with mutant business lately and haven't taken him out. How do the two of you usually work this?"
"Matt doesn't fob me off with a Shadow Clone the way you do. He has to wait until around ten and come himself. His father's no fool either — what teenager is sound asleep by that hour every night?" Stick said mildly, hands clasped behind his back.
Maya gave an awkward little laugh. "Master, I'm not fobbing you off. This clone of mine is identical to my real body. Since it makes no difference whether the original or the clone shows up, of course I keep the original safe. The odds of something going wrong are low, sure — but there's no harm in caution. Isn't that right?"
"Very good. That craven, cover-your-hide prudence of yours is excellent. I won't waste breath, then. As I said before, everyone does best to specialize in a single martial art at the start. Matt studies the staff. And you? You may as well take up fist arts — K'un-Lun is most renowned for its fists," Stick said in earnest.
Maya thought about it. "Master, I'll learn the fist arts, but I'd like to also have a weapon art of some kind."
Seeing Stick about to object, Maya rushed on. "Master, I'm not overreaching — you have to take the long view. Technology is so advanced now that fists alone won't cut it. What if your opponent's wearing an alloy war-suit and you can't even get through the armor? So I need a weapon art too, to prepare for the future. And as you said, K'un-Lun's fists are number one, so naturally I'll learn K'un-Lun's core techniques as well. I'm very clever — I can handle picking up an extra discipline."
Foreigners really are beyond civilizing — not a shred of humility. Praising her own cleverness like that, so brazenly. What's her fellow disciple Matt supposed to think? Poor Matt, still struggling just to learn the staff!
"I'll teach you for one week, and then we'll see the results. If you can't pass my test, you'll do as I say — agreed?" Stick decided to give Maya her chance.
Master Stick, you have no idea how broken Shadow Clones are. Look at Naruto and you'd know. If my chakra pool weren't so shallow, I'd have half a mind to split off ten clones and clean out every last trick you've got stashed at the bottom of the box.
"Master, I won't let you down! Here's the thing — I'd like to learn a short-blade art. You wouldn't happen to know the dagger, would you?" Maya asked. Her ninja's trade leaned on the kunai, which wasn't far off from a dagger.
Stick frowned. "The dagger's too vicious. I know how to defend against dagger close-work, but I don't wield one. Most of my skill is in the staff. Peng Lai's swordplay, on the other hand, is famous — I know a little of that. Which will it be?"
Old man, your jianghu handle is literally "Stick" — of course I know your staff work is fearsome. But a staff's too weak on lethality, and above all it clashes with my beautiful-maiden aesthetic.
"Master, I'll learn the Peng Lai Swordplay! Once I've mastered K'un-Lun Fist Arts plus Peng Lai Swordplay, that's Fist-and-Sword Supreme. Master, what name should I go by? Should it be Fist-and-Sword Supreme, or Flying Sword Jade Maiden — or how about just Sword God?"
At that, Stick's face went dark as a pot bottom, and he snapped, "Learning kung fu means keeping your feet on the ground — no drifting into daydreams, no chasing empty reputation. You're a rank beginner. What good does thinking about all this rubbish do you?"
"Now — before Matt gets here, I'll teach you swordplay. Once he arrives, I'll teach you both meditation, and the Basic K'un-Lun Fist Arts."
With that, Stick tossed a staff over and added, "No sword today, so this'll stand in for one."
Half an hour later, Maya paused mid-motion and asked, puzzled, "Master, is there any point to drilling these fixed forms?"
"If you keep seeing it as a mere form, then it's very nearly useless. But if you can feel the core idea inside these movements — and through them gain some insight into yourself, and into the whole of heaven and earth — then you've grasped the essence of it."
Seeing Maya still fogged over, Stick wiped the sweat from his brow and explained. "We Chinese and you Westerners are not the same. Newton saw an apple fall from a tree, and what he discovered was Earth's gravity — what he thought of was universal gravitation. But an ancient Chinese, from the very same sight, saw flowering and fruiting, saw a thing fall to earth and turn to mud — and felt the wheel of life and death, the ceaseless turning of nature. Neither was wrong. They simply looked at the problem from different angles."
"The forebears who created this form knew nothing of anatomy or the science of movement. They only poured their own insight into the universe and nature into these forms, then gathered them up and passed them down. What Newton and his kind recorded were physical formulas. What the ancient Chinese masters recorded were kung fu forms."
"It's like you students. Some learn the formulas the scientists distilled and go on to become great figures like Einstein — or, failing that, a genius on the order of Tony Stark. But most people learn them as though they hadn't; whether a formula is right or wrong makes no difference to them at all."
"Kung fu is the same. The forms and mnemonics sit right there. Comprehend them, and there's nothing under heaven or earth you can't do. Fail to, and you may as well treat them as calisthenics. For all the good they'll do you, calisthenics is exactly what they are."
"Science and the divine arts are not at odds. They are only two blind men, standing in different places, each recording his own impression after groping at the great elephant that is the universe."