Not the coffee maker! ... or why you never mess with Natasha's coffee
Natasha wasn't one for explosions out of the battlefield. Even in her work she preferred to be silent and deadly rather than drawing attention to herself. She was good at causing damage but she never seemed to do it unnecessarily out of the training room or unless Tony had annoyed her. For those reasons, they figured she was fairly safe in the kitchen. She had proved she could cook and she seemed to have the most common sense out of all of them so they figured that the kitchen would be most safe around her.
Tony had repaired the counter since his little escapade and had since lost the right to complain about the damage cause to his kitchen. Pepper had given him an earful when she had gotten back but she knew that Natasha's prospect of payback was worse than anything she could do. Natasha was keeping the fear going by being abnormally nice and kind to the billionaire, leaving him paranoid and watching over his shoulder all the time. Everyone had learned their lesson though, never interrupt the assassin's recovery period. She didn't need one often but, when she did, she was left well alone.
Natasha had recovered from her previous mission, though, and was enjoying having some time off and being able to relax and train in the tower. The others were getting used to being crept up on by the silent assassin and seeing her relaxing around the tower. One thing they learnt about her was that she was either up really early or she slept in late. Yes, the trained assassin enjoyed lay ins in a place where she felt safe and so she kept some odd hours in the tower. This often ended up with her in the kitchen on her own, eating or drinking.
When she had just woken up, Natasha really didn't want to have to deal with anything and everything had be simple and easy if they didn't want to be thrown across a room. The main problem for Natasha was Tony's love of inventing and technology. For him, everything had to be bigger and better and more complicated, more incorporated technology and more functions. Everything had to cater to everyone's every want and need, even if you didn't know you needed it.
Normally, Natasha was well versed in dealing and manoeuvring all the different technologies and problems they caused, she had worked for him undercover for long enough to be used to it, but when she was tired and still waking up, well, it was a totally different story.
Natasha was back to normal and totally awake after her morning cup of coffee, black and no sugar, nice and strong, but Tony being Tony had addled with the coffee maker. Somehow, he had messed with the one on her personal floor as well so she headed down to the one on the common floor instead in the hope that someone would be there to make it for her so she didn't have to battle it alone.
It often worked for Natasha, as Clint would never say no to her, especially in that state, and Steve always wanted to help, even if he struggled a little with the technology as well. Natasha was sure Tony found her struggle amusing and just programmed the machine to be more difficult and annoying to her but she didn't have any proof yet and she wasn't going to give up and let the billionaire win.
Today, though, the spy was at the end of her tether. She had just completed a very tiring and frustrating mission and had gotten back only a few hours ago. She had been hoping to sleep for a very long time but for some reason after only a couple of hours of sleep, she was awake and unable to fall back asleep again in the warmth of her bed. Whilst she was awake, this didn't mean that she was completely functioning and so, as she scrabbled towards the kitchen in the common floor, JARVIS anticipating her so as to aid her in her pre-coffee struggle, she hoped there would be someone there.
Tony exited his lab after the need for coffee had grow too great for him to ignore and he found that there was none left within his lab. Cursing his lack of foresight in not stocking up enough, although he was sure there had been plenty last time he checked so that meant he must have drunk a worrying amount, he decided to make a trip the the common floor in the hope that someone had just made coffee. And if there was someone to tease there, well, all the better.
The first thing he noticed when he entered was the ex-Russian spy sat at the table sipping on a mug of what he assumed was coffee. The second thing he noticed was the large smirk on her face which caused shudders to run up his spine at what that could possibly mean and the chance that it could affect him.
The third thing he noticed was the large silver blade embedded in his precious, specially modified coffee maker. Well, that explained the smirk. Tony had known that the machine infuriated the spy, he had made it very complicated with plenty of settings, and, according to the spy, the machine never made her coffee right. It always tried to give her a fancy coffee when all she wanted was her plain, normal one.
Tony had just smirked before, finally having found a slight weakness in the spy, even if it was just after she had woken up, but now, he gaped, horrified, at his murdered technology. This was worse than destroying his kitchen, this was a personal attack on his technology, his invention, and he would ... actually, he wouldn't do anything as that smirk on her face was widening by the second and Tony was terrified of what she would do to him.
Deciding that now would be the time to bid a hasty retreat before the spy did the same thing to him that she did to his machine and that coffee could actually wait, Tony hightailed it out of the kitchen at an alarming rate to mourn the loss of his coffee maker in peace and relative safety.
Natasha was delighted to find a normal, simple coffe maker in the place of the old one the next morning, and it actually made her coffee perfectly. It survived.
Tony was banned from messing with the kitchen gadgets again. Natasha was left well alone. No one wanted to make the spy angry!
You never mess with Natasha's coffee, Tony should have known that! Unbeta'd so sorry for any and all mistakes.