I have to appologize right now to the reader. This story just popped in there and it wouldn't stop rolling around my head until I got it down on paper. Please remember that I did say that I was sorry.
The annoying electronic buzz of the internal comm sounded twice from the box on Natasha's bedside table, waking her from the deep sleep that she'd finally fallen into hours before. The world was quiet. Natasha was freshly back from a mission that left her with three days of no sleep. All she wanted to do was be left alone to get some of her energy back before facing the rest of the team and even her partner. She hadn't even told him she was back yet. He wasn't in his room when she went by to see him. Not able to muster up the energy to look for him, she retired to her own room and literally crashed into her bed.
Pepper's authoritative voice filtered into the room. "Natasha, come to the security office on my floor. I have a situation that needs your trained eye."
A very unladylike groan sounded from deep inside the tired, trained assassin. She normally ignores anything that comes out of the box especially if it's in the predawn and definitely when it's Tony's annoying voice wanting something stupid, infantile, or just to interrupt other happenings. The only time that she thinks twice about answering it is when Fury comes through with orders. This is the first time that Pepper called her in for something through the internal comm of the building.
Natasha weighed the urgency of the request, trying to decide if suiting up and weapons were required. Not remembering hearing any danger in the voice from the other woman, Natasha decided against the hardware. Crawling out from her cocoon of warmth and finding sweats and a zipped hoodie that probably belonged to Clint instead of her, Natasha left her room and followed the deserted corridors to the room where she would find Pepper. The overhead lights in the halls automatically dimmed during the evening hours leaving her sleepy mood cemented in place, one of many new upgrades that were included in the rebuild of Stark Tower along with the apartments for when everyone crashed after a mission.
An elevator ride and a few more empty hallways later, Natasha stood in front of the door to one of the many security rooms the building had. It was the closest to the lush, over the top penthouse apartment Pepper shared with Tony when he wasn't getting on her nerves.
Natasha lightly knocked a few times, using most of the energy she had left. The door opened a crack. Pepper reached out to pull the other woman into the darkness before securing the door. Natasha stared at the images projecting into air from the console on the counter. Nothing appeared out of order. Perimeter shots, empty halls, roof…nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"What did you need me to see?" She asked quietly, rubbing her eyes and trying to keep awake in the almost completely dark room with flashing images that were boring, hypnotizing and pulling her towards sleep again.
Pepper tapped out a command on the display and a new image filled the largest space in the center. In full color the "family room" appeared. The size of the room was expanded to match the living room of Tony's apartment, but the whole team had to share this one. The lights weren't out, which was odd for the time. The TV was on but muted. Commercials played silently.
"I do not understand this program." Thor's voice sounded. His back was to the camera, sitting on one end of the rounded sectional couch.
"This movie is classic." Tony defended, always having to be in the middle of everything.
"It's been a play on stage too." Natasha looked around the image for Bruce but didn't see him.
"He's in the reading chair, almost right under the camera. There's another camera angle where you can see him, but this is the best one to see most of the room. He's been there since after dinner going over test results from the lab today. I don't think that man ever sleeps." Pepper answered the confused look from the other woman in the room.
"How long have you been watching them?"
"Only twenty minutes. I woke up and Tony was gone." She gestured at the images in front of them. "I come here to figure out where in the building he is. Normally he's in one of the labs or the garage. But this is where I found him this time."
Looking closer at the image she noticed that her partner was sitting on the other end of the couch, slouched down into the cushions, foot propped up on the edge of a coffee table in front of him, looking very relaxed. Very rarely she saw him with his guard down and this relaxed. She saw it more and more as they hung around the others. If there was anyone who could watch his back and see danger coming is was this group. Steve was in on another part of the couch facing the huge screen mounted on the wall. They all had flat screens in their rooms for down time, but this thing covered the wall in sharp detail and if someone was not playing a video game on it, then a movie or TV show was playing.
"Don't these guys sleep?"
"During a mission…no. During downtime…yes, at strange intervals. Bruce has been sitting in here the longest. Tony, Clint and Thor were already in there when I came in. Steve stopped in when he was finished with his really late night workout in the gym."
The deadly assassin let out a yawn, and tried to hide it in the back of her hand. "So what am I looking for?"
"Just watch." The movie came back onto the screen after a cheesy late night animated introduction for the station.
"Unmute." Tony barked. Audible sound came from the image.
And nothing happened.
The four men, that were visible, sat motionless, glued to the action on the screen. It was boring as hell to watch and Natasha was getting pissed off at Pepper more and more each second for waking her up. A feeling she never had towards the woman.
The male and female lead in the movie they were watching were trying to sneak out of what looked like a meeting room. People littered the floor but jumped up when they were addressed. The female refused to leave because she's "cold, wet, and just plain scared." The line sounds familiar. Natasha finds herself watching the movie more than the men in the room. At least the people in the movie were talking and moving. Another character arrives from an elevator wrapped in a black cape. The woman screams and faints.
"Is that a man or woman?" Steve asks, not looking quite sure about what he sees.
"Man." Echoes from Tony, Bruce and Clint.
The man in drag begins his song and quiet voices from the room start.
"Are they singing along?"
"Quietly…at first." Pepper was holding in giggles.
"At first?"
"Just watch."
Tony and Clint quietly sang along with Tim Curry. Hands tapped knees, heads bopped to the music. Voices got stronger and more confident. Shoulders grooved and the two started to try and outdo each other with their singing. Thor and Steve looked horrified when Tim Curry threw off the cape to reveal what he was or was not wearing underneath. The girls were almost crying they were laughing so hard. They tried to watch both men at the same time but they started moving around too much in the room. Bruce's quiet voice came in, but it didn't stay quiet for very long. He helped with some of the backup voices.
"You are recording this, right?"
"Oh…yeah."
The guys were moving around the room playing off of Thor's and Steve uncomfortableness. It was unclear if the condition was caused by the movie or the over exuberant men singing and dancing in the room. Pepper and Natasha were howling with laughter. Natasha's partner, friend, (and recently more) was acting like a kid. The smile on his lips and gleam in him eye made his whole face shine. Gone was all the stress and strain that he wore in the daylight hours. Tony made a great Dr. Frank-N-Furter. He had the perfect leer in his eye and craziness when he sang. And the guys could sing.
Bruce was never seen on screen, but he could be heard singing quietly.
The girls sat in metal chairs that were folded up against the wall. Quiet comments passed between them, mostly about ordering more comfortable chairs for the on-duty security officers when it came time to hire them. They watched and laughed, cried, and were louder than the video playback most of the time. With each commercial break the two famous, tougher than nails, attitude filled superheroes that could never agree on anything including the color of night, calmed down and went back to their seats as if they had not just been up singing to whatever song they had serenaded their comrades with. Tony knew every single word to "Hot Patootie" and let the room know about it and both men added their own spin to "Toucha Toucha Toucha."
Yet, another commercial break butted into the action the girls were watching. It seemed that both Thor and Steve were done with the festivities. With the TV muted again Thor stood from his spot on the couch.
"I do not get this program." He left the room.
Steve was not looking to amused either. Shaking his head, unable to decide on what to comment about, he left the room.
The party was breaking up. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" had held the attention of the guys for as long as it could. Tony and Clint were making small talk, which didn't interest Bruce and he left the room.
"Do they know that these cameras are in there?" Natasha asked as she and Pepper walked out of the room, locking it behind them.
"No, these were not in the original design. I added them to the rebuild blueprints along with the cameras in the gym. You know we didn't have any in there before."
Natasha stopped dead in her tracks and put a hand on Pepper's arm to heed her progress down the hall. "You have cameras in the gym?" She and her best friend, partner, (and even more lately) were sparring one day and took it a little too far knowing that there were not any cameras to record their rough and tumble in the late hours of the night.
"It's funny how all the bugs are not worked out of the system yet. Large durations of footage have disappeared from the hard drive. Footage from the lab, the rec room, the gym, garage, different hallways, and even the elevators have either not recorded or not been backed up. Large chunks of data lost." A sideways, knowing look from one woman to the other passed silently.
The next morning at breakfast Natasha came in and caught Clint's eye. A glance was passed to her saying "I didn't know you were back. Everything okay?" A smile was all that she would reveal. Finding something to help wake her up, she hummed "Hot Patootie" under her breath. The men around the kitchen, each nursing a cup of strong coffee, tensed visually when they realized what she was humming.
"What are you singing this morning, fair maiden?" Thor asked not being one who recognized the song. Pepper hid behind the newspaper as not to give away the new fit of giggles that were bubbling up.
"Nothing important. I woke up late last night after getting back from the field and couldn't get back to sleep." Clint grew concerned, hoping that it wasn't one of her nightmares. Another secret look passed between the two but she had a dangerous look in her eye. "I found an old movie on TV to keep me occupied until I could get back to sleep. I must have been singing one of the songs from it." Leaning between Pepper, still hiding behind her paper, and Clint, she eased close to his ear. "I wish you would've come for the night." She paused for a beat. "Or even a bite." It was said loud enough for all to hear yet most of the words twisted into Clint's ear. Pepper could hardly stand it. The paper started to tremble with her laughter. Clint was caught mid drink and had that deer-caught-in-the-headlight look. "You removed the cause, but not the symptom." She altered the words to fit her needs.
The room stood still to see what was going to happen next.
Pepper broke the silent stalemate in the room by dropping the paper and running out of the room. All eyes stared to the door. Natasha moved to the door to follow her out.
Tony chose that time to speak up. "Wow…she's spunky this morning."
Natasha saw the other woman around the corner laughing. Having both the attention of the room and Pepper down the hall, the perfect thing came to her. "She must be going up to the lab…to see what's on the slab."
And she walked out.