Natasha was, as per usual, snooping in Tony's business - the man had dared to touch her oldest knife, this was payback - when she found something... odd.
He'd been going on fanfiction . net.
She clicked around some more and found even more weird, unusual things. Stories.
Some of them are older, and in those, there'd been lots of "sexytimez". She skipped right over them.
But then she saw the other fics.
The longer ones, the ones with hundreds of favorites, and follows. The ones with elaborate titles, and captivating summaries. The ones that were all about... her and Steve.
One said, "'I bet you don't realize it." She said. "Not that it's a bad thing. You've taught me ways I can respect myself better. Learn to trust a little but better...I can honestly say that you and Clint are the two people in the world that I can trust my very life with. I've never been able to trust anyone like that before. Guess when wrongful memories are implanted into your mind and you're trained to be the ultimate assassin, you learn not to trust. Being with the Avengers has taught me a lot of things. You have taught me a lot of things. One of those things is that you showed me someone was willing to protect me.'"
Natasha gaped at it. She had no idea how Tony could know things like that about her, could write something that was more or less true. Morbidly curious, she went on to other fics.
Another said, "Steve slowly stirred awake. He slowly turned to his side and opened his eyes. He almost jolted awake when the memories of last night flooded back to him when he spotted Natasha's sleeping face only inches away from him." Natasha frowned. The story had been rated T, meaning there shouldn't have been any sex. She read on, "He made sure to stay quiet, not wanting to wake her. He took a second to observe her. He never really noticed how peaceful she looked."
She read more, and found out that no, Tony hadn't wrote them having sex. It was simply "preparing for a mission" and "practicing". It was, in Tony's words, a "fake/pretend relationship fic, filled with fluff and gooey feelings".
She exited out of the story and went to a different one.
It said, "Steve straightened up, and removed his leather jacket, draping it over her shoulders. She pulled on its lapels, covering her arms. She smiled."
Natasha groaned. It was cute, and she understood why it was so well-liked. But the mental image of that happening in real life made her think of Steve awkwardly trying to help and her refusing it. Maybe it would be different if we were dating, like in this story...
Cutting off her thoughts, she left that story and went to another one.
It said, "He set the bag down and walked over to the nightstand. He picked up a set of dog tags and brought them over to her.
"'Listen, I want you to hang onto these for me, ok?'
"'Steve, I know what-'
"'Think what you want of it, I want you to keep them safe for me. Never know if Coulson will take off them them, to add to collection...'"
Natasha stopped reading in the middle of a paragraph to ponder how true that could be. Coulson had taken things from Steve when he wasn't looking, but it was usually pens and a stress ball. Then, she thought about Steve's dog tags. He wore them occasionally...
Stop, she thought. She wasn't supposed to be thinking about Steve with the rosy tint these stories were covered in. She was supposed to be getting dirt on Tony.
With a small growl, aimed at herself for being sidetracked, she grabbed the laptop. She had a certain lab to fill with Jell-O, and a certain person to talk to about all of the things she saw.