Happy Canada Day to all Canadians! Enjoy the freedom you politely asked for and was given rather than just throw a tantrum like a spoiled toddler and take it yourself! (Looking at you, America!)


Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

As it turned out, the five AM wake up call that Lara had asked the hotel's services for wasn't necessary. She was woken up by the sounds of "Walk Like and Egyptian" coming muffled from the inside of her messenger bag. Worried her brother was having car trouble again, she got up to answer the phone. Looking at the number displayed on the screen, she saw that it had a New York area code. Thinking there was no real harm in seeing who it was, Lara hit the "accept call" button.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Lara. I di-" Lara hit the "end call" button faster than she had hit anything in her life. She had no idea why Dante was calling her this early in the morning, all she knew was she didn't want to hear it. Unfortunately, her hang up didn't get the message across. Dante must have immediately re-dialed her number because the unknown number popped up again within seconds. Lara rejected that call and two more before she was able to properly power off her phone. She returned the device to her messenger bag and climbed back into bed.

For about twenty minutes she laid awake before she realized she wasn't going to fall back to sleep. Seeing as it was only thirty minutes or so before she needed to be up anyways, she gave up on sleep and started to get ready. Having showered the night before, all Lara really needed to do was get dressed and put on her makeup. By the time she finished, the hotel's phone rang, notifying her of her scheduled wake up call.

Breakfast didn't start until six and they didn't need to be out the door until eight. This ensured everyone had a few hours to eat and get ready. However, since Lara wasn't going in front of any cameras herself, she had very little to do to get ready comparatively. So, with all the extra time on her hands, she decided to do it productively and headed out the door to do her job.

Tony woke up around one. He didn't have any nightmares (at least, none that he could remember) but he still woke up feeling unsettled. His nerves were firing off nothing but warning signals, but there was no clear danger; just the darkness of an unfamiliar hotel room. He tried cuddling a little closer to Steve, like pouring sugar on an open wound; it did nothing to help and maybe made things worse. He couldn't stop worrying that there was some unforeseen danger in the room, waiting to harm him and more importantly, Steve.

Eventually, he couldn't take it. He had to get up and look around. Slipping out of the room and being careful to softly close the door behind him as not to wake Steve, he turned the flashlight on his phone on and began to meticulously scan the room. He still couldn't see the danger his mind seemed intent on warning him of. Maybe it never existed. Still, it didn't hurt to check.

Slowly, he made his way across the room to the kitchenette. He flipped on the light above the oven, providing some amount of light, but not so much that he would be overwhelmed or hurt his eyes. The parlor attached to the kitchen held no unseen evils either. He could see straight out the large panoramic window that faced H Street and the White House. No danger outside either. Feeling reassured, he put his back against the wall and sunk down to sit on the floor.

Running his fingers across the cool tile floor beneath him, Tony couldn't help but wonder what the hell was wrong with him. It's not like he wanted to be like this. He wanted to be able to sleep through the night, but he just couldn't. Even having Steve by his side didn't seem to do anything to help. All that he found that's helped was using alcohol to numb himself. He knew that wasn't healthy. He knew that if he wasn't careful, this could turn into an addiction, but it was keeping him disconnected to what happened. If he could stay disconnected from what happened, he could make it through the day. That's at least what he told himself.

However, at that moment he had nothing to keep him disconnected. He had already checked the cabinets when they came in, before Steve had whisked him off to the bedroom for a nap. No complementary wine and nothing else alcoholic whatsoever, just bottles of sparkling water that cost twenty bucks a piece. There was Listerine in the bathroom, but Tony didn't consider himself that desperate. At least, not yet. To distract himself, Tony opened his phone and began to look through the Ultron project files. Some mindless coding was probably just what he needed to calm his paranoid mind.

…Or it would just keep him up longer. At least, that's what he realized when he heard knocking at the hotel room door and looked up at the clock on the stove to find it was just a little past five AM. He let out a curse and saved what he was working on before getting up and heading for the door. Through the peephole, he could see that Lara was standing on the other side, honestly looking tired and bored. What the hell, he might as well entertain her.

"You know, I wasn't expecting you for another hour," he said as he opened the door.

"And I wasn't expecting you to be up for another hour." Her eyes scanned his body up and down. "Or wearing clothes." Tony had on a baggy t-shirt that may or may not have originally belonged to Steve and a pair of sweatpants that had "Stark Industries" going up one of the legs. It wasn't like he was embarrassed to be seen in those pajamas, but secretly he wished he had gone to bed with fewer clothes on. Steve, too. Tony frowned.

"What do you want?"

"I just came to give you your morning wake up call," Lara said. "You know, that's kind of my job."

"Not for another hour," Tony pointed out. Lara pulled her phone out of the messenger bag at her hip.

"Tell that to my ex," she said. "He woke me up with repeated phone calls and the only way I got him to stop was by turning off my phone. If you want to complain to anyone, the person you should is just one tap of the power button away."

"Shit, he's calling you now?" Lara nodded in confirmation. "Let me see your phone."

"I was joking," Lara said. "Don't actually answer him. It'll only encourage his behavior."

"Oh, I know," Tony said. "But I can get your phone to block calls from another, specific phone. That way they can't use something like WhatsApp to message you anonymously or try to mask their phone number."

"Ugh," Lara groaned. "I thought they got rid of *67."

"Nope," Tony said, popping the "p." "They just made it more complicated." Lara pushed the phone into his hands.

"Take it," she said. "He's only called me a handful of times so far, but already I'm annoyed beyond all rational comparison."

"Don't hand me things," he grumbled as he stepped away from the door. Lara followed him inside and shut it. Tony powered on the phone and was about to ask for the specific phone number when his ears were suddenly assaulted by the sound of mid-80s pop rock.

"The Bangles?" he questioned. "Really?"

"Hey," Lara said. "Susanna Hoffs is a gift unto this world, and I will not hear otherwise. Understand?" Tony just gave her a look of disgust before hitting the "reject call" button.

Unfortunately, Tony was subjected to the "wonderful gift" of Susanna Hoffs several more times before he was able to effectively block the number. It wasn't hard, just somewhat needlessly complicated. He had to have JARVIS trace the number back to the phone company it was registered to, and then hack into their systems to get the phone's specific model number. Once he had those things, it was just a simple matter of hacking into Lara's phone and programming it to automatically reject calls originating from that specific model number. After that, the music stopped.

"I did it," he announced, sliding the phone across the counter to give back to her.

"Hallelujah," she remarked. "Seriously, thanks. That would have driven me crazy."

"Well, I can easily see the Bangles driving anyone crazy." Lara glared at him.

"Shut up," she muttered as she slid her phone back into her messenger bag. "So, what are you doing up this early? Out of the two of you, I thought Steve would be the morning person."

And you would be right. Tony sighed.

"Woke up," he explained. "Couldn't fall back to sleep."

"What time did you wake up?" Tony really wished she didn't ask that.

"Early enough." He had hoped that would have been enough for her, but the hard look he was getting told him otherwise.

"Specific number, Tony," she said. Right then he knew he had lost the battle.

"One." Lara let out a groan of annoyance. "To be fair, I spent most of yesterday sleeping."

"You spent most of yesterday wasted." Tony gave her a hard look. After all, it's hard to deny something everyone knows is true. Lara looked away for a second to gather her thoughts before directing her gaze at Tony. "Look, I'm not going to make a big deal about this, but can you please just lay off the sauce today? I think we can all agree we don't need that headache on top of everything else."

Tony looked away and thought about it for a moment. It wasn't like he had much of a choice. Still, though, he didn't like being called out on his drinking like this, especially when it wasn't even a problem. He looked back at Lara who was waiting expectantly.

"You have my word." Lara nodded acceptance.

"Good," she said. "And now that we've gotten that out of the way, why don't you start working on getting ready?"

"Because I still have another hour before I technically need to be up?"

"Early bird gets the worm," Lara said.

"That saying sounds so weird when you say it," Tony deflected. "Something with the accent."

"Would you rather I say it in French?" Lara asked. "Con comme une valise sans poinée."

"That's not what it translates out to." Obviously, Lara knew that.

"Well, then you better get ready before I butcher some more translations, andouille." Tony didn't bat an eye.

"Casse couille." Lara feigned offense. Tony ignored her and turned back towards the bedroom. "If I must get ready now, can I at least wake up Steve? He'll make the process so much more enjoyable."

"Just don't spend all your time screwing each other," Lara warned. "I do not want to have to break that up." Tony wanted to respond with an obscene gesture but decided to let it go. He had already won the war. No need to rub her face in it.

Tony was careful to open the door as quietly as possible and only allowed it to open far enough so that way he could squeeze through without the light from outside rousing Steve. Once inside, he shut it again and slowly started padding over to the edge of the bed that Steve was facing. Getting down on his knees, Tony was face-to-face with his sleeping boyfriend. Steve's face was so serene when he slept. It was like all ninety-three years of his life melted off his face. He was so beautiful that Tony could kiss him.

So, he did.

Leaning in closer, Tony gently pressed his lips against Steve's. Since Steve was still asleep, Tony tried not to be too forceful, but the gentle whisper of a chaste kiss he ended up giving him wasn't enough to wake him. Unsatisfied, Tony broke off that kiss and gave Steve another one. This time, he applied a bit more pressure to Steve's lips and was rewarded with the low sound of "mmph."

Tony pulled back and watched Steve's eyelids flutter. It always took Steve a few moments to wake up, but once he did, he was awake and alert in an instant. His blue eye's met Tony's and a smile came across his face.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey." Tony returned his smile.

"That was a rather pleasant way to wake up." Tony brought a hand up to slowly stroke Steve's cheek.

"That's what I was hoping for." Steve caught Tony's hand in his and held his knuckles to his lips for a long moment. Releasing Tony's hand, Steve smiled.

"I wouldn't mind another." In moments Tony's lips were crashing against Steve's again. This time, Steve was conscious enough to respond back. It made the kiss that much more enjoyable.

Tony slid his tongue across Steve's lips and Steve opened his mouth in kind. By this point, Tony had already explored every inch of Steve's mouth and knew the exact spots to run his own tongue over to make him moan and groan. Steve melted a bit but quickly retaliated by pushing Tony's tongue back and invading his mouth. Tony liked where this was going.

Then the door opened.

"God, what did I say about screwing?" Steve immediately pulled back, face flushed red. Tony couldn't help the rise of the corners of his lips. That was until Lara hit him in the face with the t-shirt Steve had discarded during the night. "Come on, get up."

Steve sat up and offered Tony a hand. At least he was being nice to him. Standing up, he turned to Lara.

"How about this," he said. "I have the key to all the rooms. If you stop harassing me to get ready, we can go wake up the others." Lara's face lit up. Yeah, he thought she'd like that.


Natasha moved her feet carefully, trying to follow the instructor's words to the T.

"Un deux trois

Un deux trois

Un deux trois

Un deux trois"

She kept the rhythm in her head, moving with exact precision. The training was hard, and she struggled to keep a balance between perfection and failure. Failure meant death. Perfection was something far worse. Average was survival. So, she did her best not to stand out for either good or bad. With every plié, balancé, pirouette, kick, jab, lunge… Wait, were they dancing or fighting? Honestly, Natasha couldn't tell anymore.

All at once the rhythm stopped. The stark silence drilled into her ears. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Something wasn't right here.

Natasha raised her hand to the side of her head. There, she could feel the handle of a knife. She'd rather have a gun when facing the unknown, but she'd take what she could get. Wrapping her hand around the handle, she waited for the moment to strike.

Within moments she could feel an unfamiliar presence coming close to her. She surged forward, pinning the potential predator now turned prey against the wall hard. She brought the knife up and positioned it inches from Stark's eye, ready to…

Slowly, she snapped out of it. Loosening her fingers around the knife, she allowed it to fall to the ground. She took a deep breath as she let go of Stark and directed her gaze downwards. Her mind ran through the list of breathing techniques that Laura had taught her. God, she wasn't expecting that.

"You okay," a wary, slightly accented female voice said. Natasha looked up to see Stark's assistant and found that the question was directed at Stark.

"I'm fine," he assured before turning to Natasha. "You?" She gave a quick nod.

"Fine," she assured. "You startled me a bit."

"Sorry," Natasha raised her eyebrows. Just as she was about to apologize, Stark beat her to it. Yet another thing she hadn't been expecting. A little dumbstruck and still slightly embarrassed by her reaction, Nat just gave another nod and muttered something along the lines of "no need." Tony gave an understanding nod in response.

"Okay," Lara said carefully. "We were just coming to tell you that it was time to wake up…"

"You were going to prank me, weren't you?" Lara's eyes went wide as if she was expecting to get acid thrown in her face.

"No."

"Yes," Tony admitted.

"Kind of," Lara said reluctantly. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"It's alright," she assured. "I'm fine now."

"Okay," Tony said. "We'll leave you be." Tony slowly started stepping towards the door and gestured for Lara to follow him.

"Sorry," she apologized before scurrying up on Stark's six. Natasha shut the door behind them and pressed her head against its cool wood. Carefully, she found her center again.


Bruce didn't dream anymore. He hadn't been able to since he was exposed to Gamma Radiation. Sleep was nothing but a long expanse of black until his eyelids inevitably fluttered open, allowing light in. One would think that kind of sleep would be merciful, especially for someone with his history. However, for Bruce, it wasn't. He didn't dream, but he could still think and sometimes his thinking would be enough to drive a sane person mad. He wasn't sure what that said about him, but it probably wasn't good.

Surprisingly for a second, he thought he heard voices; ones other than that of the Other Guy that inhabited his head. He panicked for a moment but calmed once he realized that the voices were coming from not only outside of his head but outside of his room as well. Slowly, he pried his eyes open.

"…sure, that's a good idea?" Bruce pieced together what the voice said. The door dampened the sound enough to where they could barely be heard clearly. It also didn't help that they were whispering. "I mean, you don't know what his reaction is going to be."

"What," he heard the second voice said. It was lower than the first. "You afraid that he's going to Hulk out?"

"No," the first voice said firmly. Based on the slight accent that she spoke with, Bruce could guess that it was Lara. "But given that you almost got stabbed in the eye…"

"Romanoff's jumpy," the voice he could now guess was Tony's said. "I should have expected that. Besides, you almost stabbed Bruce in the eye when you first met him. You're not one to talk."

Bruce could only imagine what Lara responded to that with. Sighing, he got up and opened the door to his bedroom.

"It's too late," he said, taking both Lara and Tony by surprise. "You guys woke me up before you could even prank me. You were going to prank me, right?"

"No."

"Yes," Lara admitted.

"Kind of," Tony said somewhat reluctantly. Bruce shook his head.

"Well, I'm awake now," he said. "Looks like you'll have to try again tomorrow."

Tony and Lara looked slightly disappointed as the reminded him to come down to the dining room for breakfast and promptly left his suite. Well, at least now Bruce knew to expect them. It was probably safer that way.


Clint was on the two kids and a farm sleep schedule, which meant he was usually in bed by nine o'clock and up and at 'em by 4:15. So that meant he probably up and ready long before anyone else was and since he had no kids and no farm to take care of, that left him with nothing to do. At first, he spent his time pacing the room but found that his thoughts drifted easily to Loki and what he had done to him. Needing something to keep him focused – anything, really – he took the sheets off the bed and started tying them together. Yes, he realized how expensive those sheets were and yes, he knew the maids weren't going to be pleased with him, but it calmed his mind and made for a mostly sturdy rope.

That's when he got an idea…

First, he secured his make-shift rope to one of the legs of the bed and opened his bedroom window. Carefully, he unscrewed the screen and threw the other end of the rope out. It ended up just barely being long enough to safely reach the alleyway below. Next, he gently knocked over some lamps – guiding them carefully to the ground so that way they wouldn't smash and cause him to owe the hotel more money than he would ever see in his life and tossed some throw pillows around the room. He also to a moment to flip over an armchair that sat in the corner of the room.

For very secret spy reasons, Clint knew how to make fake blood out of KY jelly (which the hotel had so kindly provided.) He whipped up the recipe quick and started smearing it on the walls. Then, he pushed the mattress halfway off the bedframe and tilted the headboard forward a little bit. He didn't have a lot of cash on him, but the hotel did provide plenty of reading material. He emptied out his smallest suitcase and stuffed as many books as he could inside. Feeling satisfied that the case felt heavy enough to be carrying a few hundred thousand dollars, he strategically placed a few bills so they would stick out of the case and shut the lid.

The last few steps that he took were to flip the TV to a channel that was nothing but snow and open the door connecting his room to the main hallway, so it was slightly ajar. Now all he had to do was wait.

Within a few minutes, he heard two voices approaching from down the hall. He recognized them as Stark's and his assistants. He couldn't hear what they were saying until they walked into the room.

"That's weird," he heard Lara say. "The door is open." Stark must have shrugged it off.

"He's a super-spy," he said. "He could probably handle the average cat burglar like it's nothing."

"Still, doesn't it seem odd…" Clint heard the bedroom door creak open. It was shortly followed by a sharp gasp.

"What the hell?" Stark exclaimed.

"Oh my God…"

"What the fuck happened?" Clint tried desperately not to laugh, but their reactions were making it hard.

"Oh my God," Lara said again, this time sounding like she was trying to catch her breath. "We need to call the police."

"Is Barton…?" There was a moment's pause as it sounded like Stark took a couple of steps. "What is that?"

"No!" Lara shrilly screamed as she rushed forward, presumably to stop Stark. "Don't touch anything! Let's just get out of here! We need to call 911 now!"

Clint chose that exact moment to push open the closet door slightly and fall lifelessly to the ground. Stark and Lara screamed at the top of their lungs. Clint kept himself from laughing by reminding himself that he was going to be the one to clean the KY jelly/blood off the walls.


In the end, Natasha heard the screaming from across the hall and came running. Immediately recognizing that it was KY jelly on the walls – not actual blood – and that Clint had no obvious injuries, she smacked him on the side of the head with a throw pillow and hauled him to his feet. Both Lara and Tony gaped, surprised that Clint was okay, and they had been tricked.

"Stop being an ass," she commanded, thumping him on the shoulder.

"Oh, come on," Clint said. "It was all in good fun."

"That was not funny," Lara gasped, clutching her chest as if she were about to have a heart attack.

"Please don't tell me you filmed this," Tony – surprisingly enough – plead.

"No," Clint assured. "I wish I had, though. I couldn't see what you guys looked like when you walked into the room."

"Fucking scared shitless," Lara said. "That's what."

"My bad," was the closest thing to an apology it sounded like Clint was going to give right now. Natasha gestured to the exit.

"Alright," she said. "You two done trying to prank everyone awake?" She didn't wait to see Tony and Lara's nods of the agreement before telling them to get out. They both complied wordlessly, still seeming somewhat stunned by what had just happened. Natasha closed the door behind them and turned back to Clint with arms crossed. "What the hell was that?"

"It was just a joke, Natasha," Clint said. "Calm down."

"No," Natasha said. "It wasn't just a joke. Not to them. They thought you had actually been murdered."

"I wasn't even hurt," Clint pointed out. "If they had looked at me for longer than two seconds, they would have known."

"Yeah," Natasha said. "But you also smeared sex jelly on the walls and tore the room apart. What else were they supposed to think? How were they supposed to know that this was even a joke?"

"To be fair," Clint said. "I thought you'd be the first person to walk into the room. You would have – and did – see right through this."

"That's because I know you, Clint," Natasha said. "They don't." Clint looked down.

"Right." Natasha sighed and looked at him straight on.

"What is this, Clint?" she asked. "Why did you do this?" He shrugged.

"Woke up early," he said. "Needed something to do."

"So, you set up a fake murder scene?" The expression in her eyes clearly communicated that she didn't understand how that was as follows. From the look on Clint's face, Natasha could tell he was trying to figure out how to justify it as well.

"It was the funniest thing I could think of," was the best he could come up with. "And I could use the laugh." Natasha frowned.

"What's wrong, Clint?" Clint sighed and tried to sit down on the mattress. He had forgotten that he had slid it half-off the bedframe and slumped straight down to a spot on the floor. Undeterred, he just made himself comfortable where he landed.

"I can't get Loki out of my head." With those words, Natasha's frown turned into a look of sympathy. Slowly, she lowered herself down so she could sit next to him but refrained from touching him. She didn't want to startle him or make him uncomfortable. "I don't know what it is," Clint continued. "But every free second, I have, my mind just drifts back to when it happened. I can't stand it, so I try to keep myself busy. Back at the nest, it's easy, but here?" Natasha slowly mirrored Clint's position, pulling her legs up to her chest and directing her gaze to her feet.

"Does Lisa know about this?" she asked, using their codename for Laura.

"Of course," Clint said. "You know better than anyone that nothing can be kept hidden from that woman." Natasha had to laugh at that. "Besides, even if I needed to, I don't think I'd be able to keep this from her. Not with the dreams I've been having."

"Dreams?" Clint took a deep breath.

"You remember that vision I told you about?" he asked. "The one Loke made me see?" How could she forget? Clint was forced to watch as Laura and the kids were killed in less than a minute and were forced to relive the nastier parts of Budapest. Just hearing about it was terrifying enough. She couldn't imagine being forced to watch it repeatedly. What made it even worse was that he was apparently still plagued by the vision now even months later when he was out of Loki's control.

"Clint," she started to say.

"That's not the only thing I see," he cut her off. "There are other things interspersed in there. I see what I did while I was under Loki's control; I see myself betraying S.H.I.E.L.D.; everything that I hold dear. I see myself hurting innocent people; killing them. Coulson…" He trailed off there for a moment as if determining what he should say. He swallowed hard. "I see Coulson a lot."

"You didn't kill him," Natasha said. "That was all Loki."

"Yeah," Clint said. "But I was a part of it."

"No," Natasha said. "You weren't."

Things were silent for a while. The tension between them was palpable. Clint seemed like he wanted to argue against that, but deep down somewhere, he knew Natasha's words to be true. He wasn't responsible for Loki's actions and he needed to stop blaming himself. Nat hoped that those three words would be enough to get her point across. She heard Clint sigh as he turned his attention to the wall beside them.

"I should probably start cleaning this up," he remarked.

"Yeah," Natasha said as she stood up. "Good luck with that."

"You're not going to help me?" She scoffed at the thought.

"You made this mess," she said. "You get to clean it up."

"That's so mean," Clint complained.

"Well, that's what you get for being an ass." Natasha then left the room, returning the finger that she was almost certain Clint was giving behind her.


Thank you to mfaerie32 for the review on FFN! It really means a lot!

I'm an American by the way, in case that wasn't clear. I don't have the most understandable sense of humor...

Fun fact! You can actually make fake blood out of KY Jelly! I know because that's what they use on the Walking Dead, particularly when they need to cover an actor in blood and guts so that they're not completely sticky all day.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and if you can, please leave a comment or review! No pressure!

Remember kids, murder pranks never go wrong. Just search "Murdered My Girlfriend Prank Corey Scherer" on Youtube! That prank went great!


Originally posted on FFN on 7/1/19.