Happy 16th December. Still catching up but hopefully I'll get there soon. This story's another Tony/Natasha one so I really hope you like it. They're growing on me as a pair. Thanks for reading and as always, I own nothing to do with Marvel.
P: Please Don't Let Me Go – Olly Murs.
Please Don't Let Me Go
Someone had been in Natasha's apartment.
She wouldn't have been overly concerned by the table near the front door being slightly out of place, as it wasn't that unusual for Clint to drop by whenever he felt like it, except the last time someone had broken in, it was a bunch of ex-KGB assassins sent to kill her for uploading Shield's – and therefore some of the Russians' – secrets online.
She had relocated slightly after, taking Tony up on his offer to move into Stark Tower, so in order to break into her apartment, whoever it was would have had to get into the tower, then past security to gain access to the residential floors, then past Jarvis to avoid setting off any alarms.
That was troubling.
"Jarvis?" she asked softly, drawing her gun from her side holster, "who's been in my apartment?"
The electronic voice crackled overhead. "I believe the last person to access the security systems on this floor was Sir at 1300 hours this afternoon."
Natasha sagged in relief and clicked the safety back on her gun.
An inside job then.
Tony was truly incorrigible sometimes, especially since they had began…
Well, she didn't really know what to call them. They were friends, and they slept together. Natasha supposed that if she was going to be crude, she would call them fuck buddies, but that term would be a disservice to what they actually had.
They were… familiar… and caring… to each other.
They had bonded not long after Pepper had moved back to Malibu to take care of Stark Industries, breaking Tony's heart along the way. He knew why she had left, understood it even (not everyone was cut out for the danger their lives involved), but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. Natasha had recently moved into the tower after the failed Russian assassination and had been drifting following the exposure of Hydra in Shield's midst. She knew that eventually she would probably hook up with Steve again and help him on his missions, including the hunt for the Winter Soldier – she genuinely liked the super soldier and, more importantly, she trusted him to make the right choices – but until then she was left to cobble together the pieces of who Natasha Romanov was… or who she could be.
And Tony had been there.
They already had a somewhat tempestuous relationship thanks to her deception as Natalie Rushman and his aversion to being stabbed in the neck with needles (although he really should thank her for that one), but they also had a lot in common.
They were both generally untrusting of people as a collective, they were both smarter than anyone ever gave them credit for, they both knew that they were vulnerable, given their humanity in the face of monsters and aliens and Gods, and they were both chronic insomniacs with an appreciation for fine spirits.
She supposed relationships had been based on less in the past.
So it wasn't really a surprise to her when she had found herself in Tony's bed following a night of drinking and commiserating. They didn't make a big deal out of it – both of them had too much life experience to be bothered that it had happened – but then it kept happening.
What was surprising to her was how well whatever-it-was they had worked. He didn't crowd her or ask her too many questions or act like she was one of his possessions that he could tout around on his arm. Instead they continued as much as they ever had. He made suits and energy sources and ran around in his lab causing explosions, only to venture forth once in a while to joke with the rest of the team or have a drink. She trained in the stimulation room that he had set up for her and Clint, practiced her ballet in a dance studio that had appeared on the seventh floor and began to piece together some new covers for herself while listening for leads for Steve on Barnes.
They worked together when they needed to and then left each other alone, only to meet up again in the evenings over his custom-made bar. Sometimes the drinking became a meal together, other times he would convince her to watch a film with him. He always made sure that they watched something with technology or spies in it, just so they could jeer at the screen and tear the plot holes apart.
It was nice. It was… not love… but understanding and maybe affection.
Still, that didn't explain everything.
"Jarvis, why was Stark in my suite?" She almost didn't want to know.
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say," Jarvis replied. "I only know that Sir wished it to be a surprise."
Natasha grimaced. She knew Tony meant well half the time, but she hated surprises.
Even though she now knew that no-one was inside waiting for her, Natasha cautiously made her way inside. She scanned the living space, but saw nothing out of place. She slipped into her bedroom and there it was.
On her pillow, wrapped in Iron Man-red paper (really, Tony!) was a gift.
It was strange, she thought, that this was one of the first presents she had ever received 'just received'. She didn't celebrate her birthday - she didn't actually know when it was - and hadn't been I the country for the last three Christmasses. Clint and Laura had bought her a Christmas gift, she remembered, the first year she had been in the country, working for Shield. Laura had bought her a diary and a selection of books (she never used the diary, but the books had been read cover to cover several times). Clint had got her a set of throwing knives with a custom thigh holster and an English for Dummies book that he found hilarious. Apart from them though, no-one else bothered.
Picking up the parcel gently, she turned it over in her hands and then carefully peeled the tape and paper away.
Inside was a shawl – a soft grey colour with the odd glittering silver strand woven in. The shawl was wrapped around a pair of electrified gauntlets.
The weapons were beautifully crafted, slimmer and more flexible than her usual pair. They were a gift crafted for a team mate – one of the little ways she knew Tony should that he cared without actually showing it.
He was as bad with emotions as she was, and she had had hers drilled out of her over years of indoctrination by the Red Room operatives. She could only imagine how hard Howard Stark must have been on his son for Tony to react the same way she did.
The shawl though… that wasn't a team mate's gift.
She held it up to the light, admiring the shimmers it gave off as the sun caught the silvers threads. It was an exquisite gift – soft, glimmering. She wrapped herself up in it and glided over to the mirror. The wool was fine and the colour offset the brightness of her hair. She looked peaceful in it… content… beautiful…
No. Not a team mate's gift, or even a friend's gift.
This was a lover's gift.
It was strange for her to even consider the fact that technically, she and Tony were lovers.
This gift represented more… or, at least, the possibility of more.
It was a scary thought. She and Tony were good as they were and if that changed, then things could become awkward and difficult. Natasha didn't know how to do that – to become someone's more.
Of course, that little voice in the back of her head whispered, more didn't have to mean different. They could be the same, just… more.
More time together, more permanency, more jokes and sarcasm and watching TV and sleeping together and clinging to each other in the night.
Maybe that kind of more she could do.
"Miss Romanov," Jarvis' voice interrupted her. "Sir is inquiring as to whether you like the gifts he has left for you."
Of course he was. Because Sir was an impatient bastard.
"Tell him…" Natasha paused, biting her lip as she thought what to say. "Tell him, thank you. And that the shawl is beautiful."
"Of course." Approval rang through Jarvis' voice. "I'll let Sir know straight away."
Natasha turned back to the mirror and let her fingers run over the fabric fondly.
Who would have thought? she mused. Tony Stark was now her more.