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Chapter 1: In Which the Characters Are Introduced
Bullet fire peppered the ground around her, but the Black Widow easily dodged and avoided each projectile. She dove behind a car, taking temporary shelter behind the half-melted Chevy. She checked her Widow's Bite bracelets; everything was working well, and dove out again. She fired six shots, and six enemies went down. One last stretch…
The Widow leaped, somersaulting nimbly over the heads of her attackers and landed perfectly on her feet. She reached out a hand-and deftly grabbed the other team's flag.
"Team Widow wins again," she declared proudly. "Tony, I completely destroyed your 'amazing, unbeatable, indestructible' hostile resistance robots."
Tony Stark rolled his eyes. "Those were prototypes, Natasha. You weren't supposed to utterly annihilate them!"
Steve laughed. "But you do put on a decent show." Bruce nodded and laughed in agreement.
"Nice job, Tash! But next time, try to rely less on your weapons. We know you're the expert at hand to hand, but…" Clint advised. Tony rolled his eyes. Leave it to an assassin to critique another assassin.
"I do not see why you wished to test your prototypes on the Black Widow, Tony," stated T'challa, unsure of Stark's motives.
Tony raised an eyebrow. "If my stuff can't take out the best, it's not good enough." He snorted as he realized something. "And guess what?" He didn't wait for anyone to guess. "That's why I'm on top."
Thor looked puzzled, with confusion written all over his face. "Did you not tell the Widow NOT to annihilate these robots?"
Tony buried his forehead in his hands. "Whatever."
Steve, Bruce, and T'challa burst out laughing. "And the genius has no common sense!" gloated Bruce.
Tony stared daggers at the man. "I will kick you out of my house." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "…and you're a genius, too."
"Did she really annihilate them completely?" Clint asked Tony as the latter made micro-adjustments to the prototype he was now working on.
Stark shrugged. "She left one alone, so I could see what to improve. That's this one." He gestured to the robot in front of him. "She just locked it inside a defunct car."
Clint nodded his head in appreciation. "She's really good."
"Better than you?" Tony asked innocently.
"In some things. She's better at hand-to-hand. We're pretty evenly matched when it comes to shooting guns, but I'm a lot better than her with a bow. Of course."
"Of course," Tony mimicked.
Clint raised a fist. "Has anyone ever told you that you are the single most annoying creature on the planet?"
"Yes. Many times," Tony smirked.
Clint threw his hands in the air. "You're impossible."
"Thanks." Tony grinned as Clint left in exasperation.