Iron Man, yes, Tony Stark, no. Infiltrating Tony Stark's company had definitely given Natasha Romanoff (alias Natalie Rushman) some insight on the man. Namely, that he was absolutely not a team player and had some serious issues. She had been pretty specific in her report: Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no.
Iron Man, yes. Because honestly, the suit was amazing. She didn't hold on to many childish emotions, but something in her leapt at the sight of a red-and-gold suit of armor launching up into the sky with a man inside. Iron Man, additionally, was made by the best former weapons designer on the planet. It was armed to the teeth, and those teeth were insanely sharp. Suffice it to say, Iron Man could be the biggest catch SHIELD had made in its entire existence, if the technology could be adapted for their Agents. Something told her, though, that Stark wouldn't let that happen any time soon. When he said "no more weapons manufacturing," she doubted there were any exceptions. Plus, he was really possessive of that damn suit.
Tony Stark, no. Where to start on Tony Stark? He was practically an open book when it came to the alcoholism, the daddy issues, the reckless self-endangerment. There were other issues he tried to keep hidden, she suspected, but even she couldn't completely ferret them out. She suspected at least minor PTSD from Afghanistan, she suspected he had nightmares and she knew he had a phobia of water but she had no idea where it could possibly be from. The man was a walking time bomb, there was no sugar-coating it, he was a mess.
Iron Man, yes, Tony Stark, no. She was certain of it: that man would never be a functional part of a team, could never work under orders, and had enough mental problems to make him even more a liability than Iron Man was an asset. Coulson had agreed with her, SHIELD had taken her recommendation on the subject, and Iron Man had been scratched from the tentative roster. At least… until New York.
Loki and the Tesseract were such a threat that nobody questioned Fury's decision to bring the Hulk on board, or to call in Tony Stark with his amazing suit. When Natasha walked in and looked around and saw Captain America was leading their team, however, she started to worry about more than just Clint. She started to worry that the team would be torn apart within hours by the sheer force of the anger Tony was directing at the man he was supposed to be following.
Then came the aliens. Then came the portal. And then came the moment when Bruce Banner arrived in the middle of the carnage on a tiny, ridiculous little bike and completely destroyed the "party" Iron Man brought them. Bruce arrived in the nick of time, just like Tony had said he would, and Natasha started to wonder if she had misjudged the man. Because yeah, he was a mess, a time bomb (weren't they all), but apparently he had also been the only one of them to see what Bruce Banner was capable of.
And then.
"Call it, Cap," Iron Man said in a steady voice, and Natasha Romanov nearly had a heart attack. Was that Tony Stark speaking, or had someone much more reasonable hijacked the suit and actually asked Captain America to lead them? That was Tony's voice coming from the suit, but those weren't Tony's words. They couldn't be - but apparently, they were.
And then came the nuclear missile, the moment they realized everything they were doing to fight the Chitauri was in vain, because Manhattan was going to be blown to nuclear rubble, and the Avengers with it. "I've got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute." Three hearts had nearly stopped beating. Thor didn't know what the word nuke meant, the Hulk was past understanding, but the rest of them knew the deadly implications of those words.
And then he had said, "and I know just where to put it," and the full scope of his plan came into view, and it was the most suicidal thing she had seen since Budapest, maybe even more so. She remembered the words reckless self-endangerment - well, that one was true, then. But this, this was what anyone would want a superhero to do, to sacrifice their life for millions of people. This wasn't how anyone would have expected Anthony Edward Stark to die, it was the kind of sacrifice you only saw in books.
He was only three feet away from her as he blasted up the side of the tower, close enough to see the look on her face, the total shock that she just couldn't be bothered to hide. If he took the time to look at her, he would know: she knew how wrong she had been. And when Steve told her to close the portal, she hesitated, and then she remembered that Tony had been the one to grant the Captain authority over the battle, that Tony had known this would be a one-way trip, and that if she didn't close that portal, the blast would reach them all too soon, destroying all the lives Tony Stark had sacrificed himself to save. Because only two people, him and Thor, could have escaped New York before that blast arrived. He could have run.
She closed the portal. He survived anyway, the crazy son of a bitch, against all odds. They all knew, though they never talked about it, that nobody (least of all Tony himself) had expected him to draw another breath. It was the kind of miracle nobody would really ever be able to believe.
And she thought, maybe she had been wrong. Compulsive behavior? Debatable, though she would still put money on it. Prone to self-destructive tendencies? Well, yeah. But hey, she had that too, or she would have retired long ago. Textbook narcissism? Apparently he had agreed with that one. She wasn't sure anymore.
He was still a mess, still a time bomb, but in her opinion (as she told Fury when he thought about putting together a permanent roster) the benefits of working with Tony Stark were simply uncountable. Iron Man, yes, Tony Stark, impossible to say. He would fall or he would fly, but in her opinion, he deserved the chance. Because Tony Stark was Iron Man.