AN: Before I say anything else, I'M SO SORRY I DON'T POST STUFF MORE OFTEN ;-; I love you all, I really but school and life have seriously kicked my butt lately. I had a one-shot called "Fan Mail" about halfway written, but the laptop it was on was stolen out of my house last weekend. So I'm gonna try and rewrite it once school slows down a bit. But anywhos, enjoy the beginning to my new story! It's unbeta'd because I wrote it on my phone (hour long bus rides are actually good for something! Yay!) but I'm freaking OCD about grammar anyway, so it should be OK. I may or may not continue this depending on feedback.
Oh, and I have a message for you all. Stark, would you like to do the honors?
Tony: Gladly, Ms. ...? *wiggles eyebrows suggestively*
Me: It's Agent Equus to you, Stark. Now get on with it.
Tony: But...
Me: Stark, you have a girlfriend. And I would not like to be the one to break it to her that you can no longer have children.
Tony: You wouldn't.
Me: Oh but I would.
Tony: Fine, FINE! She doesn't own me (thank God), the Avengers, or Marvel and never will. Are you happy now?
Me: Very.
"A time machine, huh?" Fury was skeptical at the least. As brilliant as Stark and Banner were, a time machine? That was a little crazy even for SHIELD. "I must say you've outdone yourself, Mr. Stark."
"Does it actually work?" Hill asked from outside the lab (she was actually more intrigued than she'd ever admit afterwards) and got the patented of-course-it-works-we're-geniuses look from both men at the same time.
"Should be functional within the hour," Tony replied, spreading his hands and shrugging casually.
"Until this tech is completed and able to be handed over to SHIELD, Agent Hill and Agent Coulson will be here keeping an eye on it... and you. While this might not technically be a weapon, it could be highly dangerous should it fall into the wrong hands." Fury was the recipient of the look this time. "Yes, Stark, I'm leaving them here. No, you cannot ditch them."
Barton and Romanoff stopped by (and by stopped by, walked downstairs) the next afternoon to check progress and relieve their two superior agents for half an hour. According to Stark and Banner, the tech was operational but still needed tweaking. All that was left to fix was the control panel- some of the buttons were sticky and Bruce was adamant about fixing them, lest someone accidentally open up an interstellar wormhole. Or black hole. Both would be rather problematic. Although they didn't show it, both senior agents were relieved to escape the sterile lab, take a shower, and grab a bite to eat. Sleep would've been nice, too, but that was a luxury that was currently unavailable. By the time they returned, the lab was still completely intact, nobody had been impaled with any of the myriad of knives the master assassins kept on their person, and Natasha hadn't killed Stark... yet. Honestly, both Hill and Coulson were rather shocked, though neither of them could say that they hadn't been expecting the inevitable question from Stark.
"So, Natashalie, Legolas, care to tell us what really happened in Budapest?" he asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively. The two spies shot each other a look, and Hill knew Coulson could read the silent conversation between the two perfectly- that man had it down to a science.
Should we tell him?
No.
Agreed.
Let's piss him off. Just for fun.
You're diabolical.
I know.
"So, Stark, you really wanna know what happened in Budapest?" Natasha leaned over the balcony of the catwalk, glancing at Clint, who swore he actually saw Stark's ears perk up.
"Spill it, Natashalie," the billionaire replied smugly. Bruce rolled his eyes from behind Tony's back and mumbled "They're not going to tell you..." under his breath.
"Well... Barton and I were sent on a top-secret mission..." she began, looking at Hawkeye again.
"To take out a top-secret smuggling ring," the archer continued. "However, we got bad intel..."
"... And the mission was compromised to hell," Natasha finished. "But we hid in a church..."
"... Got secretly married..."
"... Took out five hundred men..."
"... Broke three ribs..."
"... And have been lying to you this entire time."
For a moment, Stark just stood there gaping. Bruce snorted quietly and Hill rolled her eyes. Then the sarcasm began.
"So, Natashalie, you're lying about this now too? That's just incredible. How can you handle so many lies? Or maybe you don't. Maybe you're really telling me the truth and just expecting me to believe you're lying. In fact, I don't think you're even lying. Is there even anything real about you? 'Cause I don't think so."
"You don't know a damn thing, Stark," Natasha shot back, composed and deadly as ever. "You have no clue about what went on over there, you don't want to know what happened over there, and I'm going to keep it that way."
The genius just stood there for a beat, staring at the master assassins and trying to conceal just how ticked off he was. Then he sighed, took a long drink out of his ever-present glass of scotch, and turned to get back to work.
Clint noticed something was off just a second before disaster struck. In the few minutes the dispute had taken, something in the room had changed. "Nat," he muttered to his partner, "something doesn't feel right." Though her face remained unchanged, he heard her click off the safety on her Glocks. Then Tony tripped over a wire that Barton swore hadn't been there before, and all hell broke loose.
Tony went flying forward into the time machine, whose exposed control panel met his outstretched palm with a thud mixed with a crack as his head hit into the raised metal guard box. Some of the wires began to smoke, and there was a hissing noise Coulson was pretty sure he shouldn't be hearing.
"What did you do?" Maria hissed at Stark as Coulson hauled him up off the ground.
"That was basically the equivalent of pressing all the buttons at once," Bruce answered, his skin taking on a faint greenish tint. Beside him, Clint felt Natasha start to back away down the catwalk. He quickly followed suit.
"Bruce, hang on. You have to help me get Tony out of here before this goes critical," Coulson told the man, laying a hand on his arm. Bruce nodded, breathing deeply a few times, and hoisted Tony's other arm over his shoulders.
"Hill, call for a full evacuation," Coulson called over his shoulder. "Then get the hell out of here." Tony shot him a look, to which he replied to by pointing a finger at the time machine. A red button had lit up and was beeping as the entire machine shook violently. "Stark, what happens if that thing goes off?"
"Either catastrophic failure or we're all shot back in time," he rattled off.
"And how long do we have?"
"I'd say another... five seconds or so." At this point, the Hulk emerged, breaking free of Bruce's control. Clint could hear Natasha's breath catch at the sight of the monster that almost killed her on the Helicarrier. "Run," he whispered to her, pushing her down the catwalk and sighing as she dug her heels in. "Tasha, run, I'm right behind you!" This got her going and the two took off down the catwalk.
"Hill, get down!" Coulson yelled at the deputy director as the seconds ticked down. Maria seemed to be frozen in place, though. "Stark, get out of here. Hill, get DOWN!" Tony made it clear just as the timer hit one. Disregarding the impending blast, Coulson threw himself at Maria, tackling the agent and shielding her with his body just as the explosion went off. The Hulk roared somewhere, but it was foggy and distant-sounding, and then everything was lost in the flash of white light that ensued.
Natasha groaned and blinked blearily a few times, waiting for her vision to focus. Her ears were ringing horribly and she groaned again.
"Tasha?" Barton's barely-whispered inquiry was followed by a bout of coughing.
"I'm right next to you, Clint. At least, I think I am." Painstakingly she pulled herself up against the metal railing,
"Tasha?" Clint's voice was stronger now, and louder. "So what do you think happened, wormhole or back in time?"
"If I knew I'd tell you," she replied dryly. "How are you? Anything broken? You bleeding anywhere?" There was movement next to her and instantly she regretted attempting to look at the source as the world around her began turning cartwheels.
"My ribs hurt but I can breathe all right, so they're probably not broken. I inhaled a lot of dust- we both did, I think- but other than that I think I'm okay. You?"
Natasha breathed the smallest sigh of relief before replying. "Nothing's broken but I'm bleeding from my forehead and I think I bit my cheek when I hit the railing, 'cause I can taste blood." She shifted experimentally and decided to omit the shards of glass embedded in her back from her injury roster. Her vision chose that particular moment to stop spinning. The sky above her solidified into a dusky reddish-purple backlit by the millions of lights from the city under it. "Clint... where are we?"
She heard her partner's breath catch for a moment as he surveyed the surrounding area. "Nat... I think we're in Budapest."
*holds up cardboard sign* Starving author, will work for reviews
