Porkum Uses Sue Storm To Gather Intelligence

Each day, a small box of bonbons came to the Baxter Building. Just four chocolates, and a scented card. Under instructions from the Invisible Woman, H.E.R.B.I.E. did not scan the packages, did not log them, and conveyed them directly to her. Except for Sue's new daily chocolate treat, her routine changed little.

H.E.R.B.I.E. watched her read the card and pop the first bonbon in her mouth. Her face would flush as she chewed and swallowed the creamy load. Her eyes would dilate as she memorized the message on the card, which would then be destroyed. Then she would continue on her daily activities—light exercise as she healed, interviews with the nurse, videocalls with her children, work on the computer, meals—during which she would have another bonbon or two—and then a final sweet before bed. The robot did not notice any appreciable changes in Sue Storm's character, and her workouts increased to account for the extra cavities.

Someone, however, did notice something unusual.

On S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicarrier, the Black Widow Natasha Romanoff frowned at the monitor. Her red hair was crossed closer, almost in a pixie cut; the black uniform clung to her tight, toned body. She was slimmer than Sue Storm, but her muscles were more prominent, those of an athelete that engaged in intensive regular training. Normally such a frame did not contribute to an impressive bust, but as the Widow needed her tits for infiltration, she'd been provided with implants which were as close to the real thing as possible, and even the scars were invisible.

The spy-cum-heroine had come to the helicarrier to investigate certain rumors of a new radioactive isotope on the international arms market. Dubbed "defraudium," it was supposed to have an interdimensional source and odd affects on superhuman biology. It was new—very new—which is why Natasha had been curious to see that Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four had been regularly checking up on it for days.

That wasn't the only thing Sue had been looking for.

The deeper Romanoff dug into Sue Storm's search history, the lower the corners of her mouth tugged—until, by the time she cross-referenced with Sue's activity on the Avengers database remote connection, the heroine's beautiful face was graced with a scowl.

Sue Storm had been busy, but her pattern of activity was utterly unlike anything the sometimes-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had done before. The Invisible Woman wasn't just regularly checking for references to Defraudium, but to someone named "Porkum," mutants with porcine features, lists of supervillains charged with sexual crimes, dossiers on various superheroines and villainesses, sex-related supercrimes—it was like Sue Storm was gathering a vast amount of information for some specific purpose.

What, Romanoff didn't know yet. Yet she did notice that the unusual surge in odd search activity began a little over two weeks ago, when Sue began investigating a very interesting—from an intelligence standpoint—former pork processing plant in Manhattan. The Black Widow was careful to cover her tracks, momentarily paranoid that someone would be able to connect her own search history to this subject of interest—and it was true that the spy had no direct proof of wrongdoing from Sue. Not yet.

But what is she gathering this information for? Black Widow thought to herself. And what if she is passing this information to something else? Someone with this level of information on superheroines and villainesses could cause incalculable damage...

Black Widow stood up, logged out, and pressed a button that would wipe the laptop and initiate a brief self-destruct sequence.

Natasha knew she was going to have to figure out what Sue Storm was doing herself.