The Original Initiative
Stark Tower, two months after the battle of New York.
Natasha stepped out of the lift, taking in the newly redecorated living room in one glance. Stark had done well, there was no sign Loki had ever been there, unless you looked out of the window at the widespread destruction New Yorkers were still dealing with. Up in the clouds, it was as if nothing had ever gone wrong.
"Polite people knock," Stark protested from the bar, his glass half raised. Natasha had informed Jarvis of their arrival, which was as good as knocking.
"No Banner?" she asked, ignoring his stare. It wasn't aimed at her but rather at the brunette behind her.
"Don't ask things you know the answer to, it wastes my time," replied Stark. "Who's this?" Natasha poked a decidedly Pepper style pot plant to check that if it was plastic or just incredibly shiny. It turned out to be real.
"Don't ask things you know the answer to," she shot back as she sat down on Stark's far too squishy sofa. "Stark, Agent Mede." She watched as he wandered over, turning on the charm he didn't bother using on her. For a moment Natasha was unsure about how wise it was to have the supervision of the Avengers in her temporary absence given to Mede, the smother hen instincts Coulson had drilled into her concerning her SHIELD litter-mates getting the better of her.
"So, is being hot a requirement for being a top agent or does Fury only send the pretty ones?" Natasha rolled her eyes but still fixed Stark with a cold glare.
"I'll inform Agent Barton of that," a cool English voice informed Stark, not giving away a single hint of humour. Natasha had to relax, reminded that Clint would be there, and Mede could take care of herself. Who knew, by the time her mission was over Stark could have been taken down a few pegs from his absurdly high spot.
"She's funny, I like her," announced Stark. "She can stay." The five top floors of Stark Tower, still hovering between being rebuilt with Stark atop it or rechristened the Avengers' Tower, were now given over to the team. It was a ridiculous amount of space for them, considering the Captain was living in a flat in Brooklyn redone to make him feel more at home, Thor had returned to Asgard with his brother captive and Bruce wandered in and out, uncomfortable around the masses in the city but not really wanting to leave either. Natasha refused to live under Stark's roof, preferring the base to his antics, but Clint had been told explicitly by Fury to stay away from those who were fighting for the chance to take him apart and examine what Loki left behind. So, five floors for the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, an occasional super soldier, doctor and spy, and a reclusive mentally unstable archer. The top of the tower was a pretty empty place.
"There's an empty room next to yours," Stark added. "You can show her around, I'm busy being me." Already the bar and sketch tablet had his attention.
"Come on." Natasha beckoned Mede to follow her down the corridor, out of Stark's earshot.
"Well he seems, interesting," Mede murmured. Natasha didn't think it would matter much what Stark thought of his replacement spy, Mede wouldn't be around him long enough. A few weeks, at most, then the mission would be over and Natasha would be back. It had been Fury's idea to send the third and final member of Coulson's top band to take over as babysitter to the Avengers whilst Natasha was gone. She preferred it to Mede being stuck at the base, caught in a silent grief she wasn't sharing with anyone, not even her teammates. At least at the tower Clint could keep an eye on her- well, be around, even if he was the one Natasha was most worried about.
It took two minutes and fewer words for Natasha to show Mede around. The kitchen, Clint's room, and then the spare bedroom Stark had specified. Mede dropped her duffle bag on the bed and proceeded to do the automatic check for traps, bugs or other dangers.
"Stark's clean," Natasha told her, but let her do it anyway. "You're here in case Fury needs to contact the team and to keep an eye on Clint."
"I know, Tasha, I was listening." They looked up simultaneously as Clint appeared in the doorway.
"Juliette." Relief covered the archer's features; Natasha knew that he had been worried someone else would be sent. Someone less understanding. Someone who wasn't on their side. Instead Mede let him do the awkward guy thing where he half slapped her shoulder and made a show of not hugging her, all whilst looking at his face for the same tell-tale signs of depression or something else that Natasha looked for every time she saw Barton.
Three peas in a pod, the three of them under Coulson's care. Without him, even the cold Black Widow was a little lost. Regimes rose and fell but people died, and that hurt more.
"When do you abandon me to the madhouse then?" Juliette asked. Again Natasha's doubts about leaving her two unstable and upset partners along with Stark came back.
"An hour." She had given herself one hour to get Juliette settled in and introduced before she had to leave. One hour to make up for the lack of time they had spent together in the last two months. Natasha knew Coulson would have wanted her to make more of an effort, to be there for Juliette and Clint, but she had avoided the brunette at first thinking she would be faced with tears or other signs of grief. Instead, Juliette carried on as if nothing had happened, a cold face to rival the Black Widow. When Phil was mentioned she nodded stiffly, and began to talk about the weather. So Natasha's time had been taken up with trying to get a straight answer out of Clint and keeping Rogers and Stark from each other's throats. The threat gone, the Avengers had threatened to fall apart completely, Thor was gone and Banner looked set to vanish again. It was a miracle that Stark had persuaded him, tentatively, to sort of stay.
"Great, you can show me where they keep the tea." Juliette managed to get the first half smile Natasha had seen Clint give since the incident. Her doubts lingered, but as they began their age old argument of tea versus coffee, they lessened somewhat. The Black Widow would never say that she envied their easy banter. It wasn't the time to try and integrate, not when she had to be the leader now, she had to step up and fill Coulson's shoes. They would get a new handler, they were too volatile to be left alone, of that she was certain. Now Juliette was with the Avengers too, splitting them up looked reassuringly unlikely. Coulson had proved that they worked as a trio; Fury wouldn't break his pets up.
Clint gave Juliette a better tour than Natasha had, including the kettle and tiny box of what she declared was unsatisfactory brown power bags that was supposed to be tea. To Juliette's further chagrin Stark didn't have digestive biscuits either. Natasha didn't have to go through the bag on the bed to know that there was a packet of Tetley's tea bags stashed away at the bottom. She made a mental note to find somewhere that stocked British biscuits. When things got tough Juliette looked for a punch bag, then a kettle. Natasha couldn't remember the last conversation she had tried to have with her partner about their late handler in which Juliette hadn't avoided answering by getting two mugs and some tea bags out.
"What do you think of the great Tony Stark then?" Clint asked as they retreated out of anyone's way, Juliette with a mug of the brown liquid she had to settle for temporarily and Clint with a coffee, into Clint's room. There they took up their usual places, as if they were back at base and Coulson about to walk in. Of course the room was twice the size of anything they'd ever had before, and this time Phil wouldn't walk in, telling them where they were meant to be. Natasha stood against the wall, opposite Juliette folded up on the floor and Clint cross legged on the bed. It could have been a still taken from any day of the last three years, the three of them like that. The rug had been pulled out from under them, yet nothing had changed.
"I've known goldfish with longer attention spans, and Tasha doesn't like where he looked." Natasha glared silently at Juliette for that. Stark had more vices than were good for him, especially around women trained to kill when people were looking at them like that.
Clint gave her a raised eyebrow which Natasha ignored. No, she didn't like the way Stark's immediate thoughts played out across his face, any more than Clint did when a mark looked at either of his partners.
"No comment." It was probably the wisest answer Clint could have given.
The clock was not a friend and Natasha soon had to make her departure. She straightened up, looking from one partner to the other as she tried to think of how best to tell them to look after the other without making her worries clear.
Coulson had said to play nicely, but Natasha couldn't bring herself to echo him like that.
"Six weeks tops," she said from the doorway.
"Bye, Tasha," came the replies. There was the pause and the glance that meant a silent 'keep safe' that they never uttered. You couldn't keep safe, not in their line of work.
"I might decide to keep her, she talks back less," Stark called as Natasha walked past him at the bar on her way to the lift. She sent him a level glare causing him to raise his hands in defence. "Spidey, Feathers and Limey, you're a perfect trio," he backtracked quickly.
Natasha thought about warning him to keep his eyes off of Juliette, before she realised what he would make of that and chose instead to save herself the bother.
In the car, Natasha took Hill's waiting call.
"Make contact, Fury's decided to speak to the Avengers before calling him in."
… …
Part one of The Original Initiative. I hope you enjoy it. As always, all canon is Marvel's.
