Tony woke with a start, heart thumping and mind racing. His mind like to torment him with things he would rather forget, his kidnapping and New York to be precise. This was the third night in a row he had been woken up by nightmares, though he would never admit to them. Like he always did when he was woken up, he ordered J.A.R.V.I.S to make him a hot drink with no caffeine.
As Tony made his way through his luxurious house he thought about Pepper. He had wanted to ask her out on a date for years now, 12 years really but he didn't want to admit to himself he had left it this long. Slowly he reached the stairs to the basement, looking around to see if anyone was watching him and like always no one was. Tony bounced down the steps having woken up a bit thanks to his coffee, typed in his personal password to the workshop and stopped dead in the doorway.
There were document all over the room, some broken glass on the floor and mark-42 in bits on the floor. Tony didn't remember leaving it like this; Pepper would have shouted if she knew he had done it. J.A.R.V.I.S hadn't let out the alarm that an intruder had broken in and had responded to his voice. Had someone disabled the alarm Tony wondered? It was at then when he heard the familiar clatter of tools hit the floor. Instinctively Tony dived behind a wall, waiting to pounce on the trespasser. He couldn't put on a suit without moving into the middle of the room and giving up his position.
Slowly the short red head stood up revealing herself. Tony could not believe who he saw standing over his broken suit. It had been 3 months since he had seen Natasha Romanoff, also 3 months since New York. Natasha glanced up and saw she was being spied on; she quickly pulled out her gun and went into a defensive stance.
"Come out now or I will end you" she shouted clearly.
"Well that's no way to treat your host, is it Nat?" Tony teased.
As soon as Natasha knew who was watching her she eased up, putting her gun out of sight.
"So would you like to tell me why my latest suit is in ruins on the floor, why my private documents are all over my workshop and why my skylight has been shattered? Or shall I ask Fury?" Tony asked calmly as he made his way out from his hiding place.
"Fury and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D have no idea that I'm here. 2 weeks ago, a town in India saw what they could only be described as a flying man who had a suit that looked like ironman, but it was a different colour" Natasha explained leaving out a few details.
"And may I ask why you are here breaking all my hard work?" Tony asked a little more inquisitively this time to try and get a decent answer to his question. Although he was a little surprised that someone all the way in India had found the technology to build a suit. But what could he say; he built one in a cold, damp cave in the middle of Afghanistan.
"Just making sure that you weren't running a mock internationally, and to see if any of your parts are similar to the ones we found" said Natasha without looking at Tony but playing with a screw driver instead.
"And were the parts similar to mine?" Tony asked, keen to get an answer. He did not take kindly to people copying his work.
"A few were, I guess they would have to be in order to function properly" Natasha said sternly.
"Why doesn't Fury know what's going on, when he finds he will just be pissed off because you didn't tell him" Tony asked sitting down in his custom desk chair.
"Because he will only be even more pissed to find out that, you. Mr Ironman. Didn't even notice that your suit had been copied" Natasha nearly shouted. She hated it when Tony seemed to be so selfish and not care about what is happening outside of his little bubble.
"Ok, so what do we do now, oh wait I know" Tony was pissed and he could see the confusion on Natasha's face.
"What's that then Mr Stark?" she asked politely.
"Well I'm going to try and fix what mess you have made of number 42 and you are going to call the rest of the gang, to try and figure out what is going on here" Tony said as he walked towards his suit looking sad as he saw just how badly Natasha had mangled it. Natasha knew he was in no mood to argue has she pulled out her phone and started to dial.