Tony Stark liked to take pride in how much he knew. As one of the smartest men in the world, knowing stuff was kinda his thing. And if something ever came up that he didn't know about, then he could always fix that with a little research.
Or so he had thought. His latest research project was starting to make him question that.
Or maybe that was just the sleep deprivation talking. He knew staying up for over fifty hours wasn't healthy and he could already hear Steve's lecture, but dammit he didn't need sleep right now, he needed answers. Answers and caffeine.
He reached for the pot of coffee he had brought down to the lab with him and went to pour some into his cup, only to find the pot empty save for a few drops. How long had it been since he brought this pot down? He tried to think back and found everything got a bit blurry after the fortieth hour and the twenty-fifth can of red bull.
Seeing as the coffee pot hadn't magically refilled itself while he was thinking, Tony figured now was the perfect time to leave his dozens of holographic screens behind and make his way to the Stark Tower kitchen to go get more.
Now you might be wondering what mystery of the cosmos had got the brilliant mind of Tony Stark stretched so thin. The answer is a simple question.
What happened in Budapest?
At first it hadn't bothered him. Just a casual reference to the shared past between the former SHIELD agents, capable of bringing a small but genuine smile to the often-reserved assassin.
What had first piqued his curiosity though, was the situations that the city name was brought up in. Hawkeye would be lining up a shot and give Widow a casual "Try not to get in the way of this one like you did in Budapest". Widow would throw a grenade, causing a massive chain reaction that takes out a bunch bad-guys, then turn to Barton with a smug grin and say "Just like Budapest". Or one the rare occasion where Hawkeye missed a trick shot, Widow would be there with a "Having a repeat of Budapest are we?"
The tipping point for his curiosity, had come when he had seen the mere mention of the city start a brawl between the two. Granted it had been a rather stressful mission and tempers were running high, but he doubted any of them had expected Hawkeye muttering 'Just like Budapest' to cause Black Widow to tackle him as she had.
The fight had been a spectacle to watch, Tony remembered fondly. The only comparison he could make, was to say it was like being in the same room as the climatic fight in the world's greatest martial arts movie. With the two master combatants shouting things such as 'Everything would have been fine if you had just driven properly' and 'Me! If you could shoot half as well as you claim we never would have been in that mess!'
Cap had eventually managed to separate the two, but not before everything that wasn't nailed down was used as a throwing or bludgeoning weapon. Tony wasn't sure how the conflict had ended as he had disappeared down to his lab to start researching, while Cap was still playing mediator.
And what did he have to show for his many hours of research? Apart from his brain becoming a veritable encyclopedia on the European country, (did you know Budapest had the oldest subway-line in mainland Europe?) he had nothing.
He had scanned city records, magazines, newspapers, files he was not legally allowed to view and still nothing. The only thing that looked like it might have been something, was the suspicious death of a General, but that wasn't nearly dramatic enough to have warranted some of the comments his teammates had made.
So the question remained. WHAT. HAPPENED. IN BUDAPEST!
It was at the same moment that Tony had this thought, that he also walked into the fridge. While he would love to say that the fridge was a walk in one, but sadly that was at his house. The tower had a normal fridge, with a normal metal door that he had just squashed his nose against.
Man, if he was zoning out and walking into kitchen appliances, maybe he should take a nap. Just a quick one, maybe fifteen minutes, a loud yawn escaped him, or a day. That definitely sounded tempting right now.
No! He mentally slapped himself and then physically as well for good measure. He couldn't rest until he had figured this out!
He moved over to the coffee machine to make some more brew, but as he raised the hand that was holding the pot, he found the hand surprisingly empty. He looked around for a few seconds wondering where it had disappeared to, before his eyes came to settle on the pieces of broken glass in front of the fridge. Had he dropped it when he ran into the fridge? Weird, he thought he would have noticed something like that.
"Tony?" A voice both feminine and familiar asked tiredly from somewhere behind him.
Tony turned to see Maria Hill step into the kitchen gun in hand and decked out in a white tank-top and plain grey pyjama pants. "You look like death," she exclaimed as she got closer.
"Oh, yeah? Well your pyjamas look like standard issue!" he shot back. Not his best work but screw it, he was tired.
Maria rolled her eyes as she put the gun down, "What are you doing up at two in the morning?"
"Research," he replied casually. Or at least it would have been casually if his hand hadn't missed the counter he was trying to lean on, causing him to almost smack his head before he recovered. On the upside the burst of adrenaline helped clear his head.
"I'm guessing you came up here to restock on caffeine?" Maria asked as she took in the shattered pot.
"Yep."
"How's that going for you?"
"It's a work in progress."
Maria sighed and brought a hand up to rub her temples. "What exactly are you working on, that's got you staying awake till your eyes look like big red marbles?"
"I'm looking into Budapest," Tony explained in what he hopped was a nonchalant manner, "Did you know they have the third largest Parliament building in the world? Construction finished in 1902 and it covers an area of-"
"Stop!" Maria called out, stopping him before he could gather momentum. "Why are you looking into Budapest? Last time I checked the Avengers didn't have any people of interest in Hungary."
"We still don't," Tony assured her. "But I want to know what happened there!"
"You're going to have to be more specific. The city has been around for a while and a lot has happened there," Maria replied dryly.
"I want to know what happened between Romanov and Barton when they were in Budapest," Tony clarified.
Maria just looked at him in disbelief. "That? That's the reason I got woken up from a very pleasant dream at such a god-awful hour?"
"Pretty much, yeah," he answered.
After a long moment of silence, as Maria stood there staring at him as though he had declared boomerang arrows to be a good idea, she let out a momentous sigh and asked, "If I tell you, will you go to sleep?"
"Wait! You know what happened?" he exclaimed.
"Of course I know what happened, I was the one running mission control," she explained.
"Then why didn't you tell me?" Tony cried.
"Because you didn't ask," She shot back.
Tony had to give her that one, he hadn't asked. He had just assumed that the event was just between Hawkeye and Widow and completely discounted the idea that anyone else would know the story.
"So, it's a deal then?" She asked. "I tell you about Budapest and you go to sleep?"
"Yep. I mean yes. I'm 100% on board with this deal. Should we shake on it?" Tony said, admittedly letting the excitement get to him a little.
Maria stared at him for a few seconds, like he had just suggested he could beat Steve in an arm wrestle "A verbal agreement is fine Tony. Though I could use a coffee before we start."
A moment of silence past between them before, in unison, they both looked down at the shattered pot on the floor. "Never mind, looks like it's straight to story time," she sighed tiredly.
The two moved to sit at the small kitchen table and Maria begun her tale "Barton and Romanov where in Budapest on an assignment from SHIELD. A high-ranking member of the Hungarian military had some warmongering tendencies that SHIELD had been keeping an eye on for some time, and when it looked like he was set to follow through on his ambitions, we acted. Previous attempts to peacefully discourage the target had failed, so the two of them were sent in to remove him."
"It was the General wasn't it!" Tony blurted out. "I saw those files on his death and I thought it could be that, but there' so much stuff that-" he stopped himself when he noticed the pointed glare Maria was sending him. "Sorry ma'am. Please continue ma'am."
"As I was saying, they were sent in to remove him and were able to execute that without a problem. Sadly, the Hungarian Government weren't to fond of the sudden death of such a highly ranked individual and the city went into lockdown before we could exfiltrate our agents.
"Barton and Romanov ended up stuck in a safe house for the better part of a month while they waited for things to cool down," Maria explained as she leant back in her chair.
"What?!" Tony exclaimed. "No epic car chases, missed shots or grenades causing chain reactions? They were just stuck in a safe house for a month?"
"Oh, there were plenty of car chases and grenades," Maria answered mysteriously. "For you see, they had too find a way to entertain themselves for all that time. Sure, they trained and sparred, but you can only do that so much.
"Luckily for them, the safe house had an old Xbox," Maria started, completely serious.
"No," Tony whispered in disbelief.
"And one game. Halo 2," she finished.
"NO!" Tony was on his feet and nearly shouting. "Nuh-uh. No way. It couldn't be."
Then memories started surfacing. Memories of Natasha bringing Rhodey to tears when he had first tried playing against her, and Barton, leading Cap through the co-op campaign while playing with one hand.
He practically collapsed back into his chair. "Could it be?"
"That's how it happened," Maria answered, looking more than a little amused at his reaction. "By the time we called them to say they were clear for exfiltration, they were most of the way through a no-death-speed-run on Legendary difficulty."
Of course. It all made sense to Tony now. All those references, they were about the two of them fighting aliens in a video game! That explained why he couldn't find any real-world information that matched what they had been saying!
Maria watched as Tony got up from his seat, looking to all the world like his entire understanding of everything had just been flipped on its head.
"I think I'm gonna go take a nap," Tony mumbled. "I think that'll help me process all… this," he said gesturing to indicate their conversation.
"Good idea," she agreed, as she stayed in her seat and watched the billionaire genius, zombie walk away to his room.
It seemed he had fallen for her ruse. Good.
After all, no one could know about what happened in Budapest.
AN: Not much to say about this one, just an idea I got from talking with my girlfriend. If you liked it let me know. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.