Author's Note: Greetings. So I started a job, and that means that I am at 4 am most mornings. Sure I get home early, but I've been quite busy with work, crafts, and my blog. I am apologizing for the rather lengthy delay in posts here, in other words. And then I watched the Avengers again, and I had to stop and write about all of the characters (i.e. "Hi, my name is"). Again, I apologize, and this one was difficult to write. I sat on it for a long time, and I'm still not pleased, but I am tired of looking at it. :)
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Chapter 9: Oh don't you worry, you little flame
As a highly skilled assassin and spy, Natasha had seen her fair share of horrors and been in situations for which stressful was a largely inaccurate description. Yet she found that she was grinding her teeth, the longer she worked for Tony Stark. All – she looked at her calendar – three days of it.
She sighed and leaned her head back in the chair where she sat, waiting with Pepper for Tony to finish speaking to the lunatic in the holding cell. Earlier she had excused herself for a moment to call in and report on the incident in Monaco; she had even listened patiently while Fury lived up to his name, ripping into her about how she should be able to control him. She realized then that perhaps Fury had never actually spent any time with Stark.
But now she was just dealing with the ire coming off of Pepper in waves. She took a deep breath, wishing they could sit closer, so she could hear what was going on in that cell. Natasha sat a bit straighter in the chair when the door at the end of the hall opened, and Tony strode out. He walked with a sense of purpose, but she saw a shadow of concern in the corners of his eyes. He passed them both, and Natasha heard the words he was muttering, "Vanko."
"Natalie," Pepper started, "have Happy bring the car around."
"Right away, Ms. Potts," she gave a perfunctory nod. Things were strained, to say the very least, since Tony had hired her without Pepper's consent. Being caught off guard when Tony ran off to drive his own Formula 1 car had not helped matters. Things had really only gone downhill from there. Natasha had had to disappear during the attack to call SHIELD in case backup was needed, and that hole had gotten just a little bit deeper. In answer, Natasha was working double time to impress them both.
The car ride to the plane was unpleasant. Once on the flight, Natasha kept to herself, throwing herself into research. Two things were vying for the front seat in her mind: Vanko and palladium. She needed answers, so she could make a more thorough report, and she had a feeling that one or both of them would be helping in her decision regarding the Avengers initiative.
It wasn't looking good. Natasha could see the marks of the palladium poisoning on his chest as she neared the room. When she entered, however, she feigned ignorance, "Do you know which watch you want to wear tonight, Mr. Stark?"
He startled and began buttoning his shirt, "I'll take a look."
She nodded and began making him a martini, giving him the lead on opening up to her. It always happened; it didn't matter who it was – they would always tell her what she needed to hear.
"We should cancel the party, huh?"
That was a bit of a surprise. She turned, "Probably."
"Yeah. Cause it's, um-"
"Ill-timed," she finished for him.
"Right. It sends the wrong message."
"Inappropriate," she murmured, as she approached him. Their fingers touched briefly when she handed the martini glass to him, "Is that dirty enough for you?"
He took a breath, "Uh...gold face with brown band. The Jaeger. I'll give that a look. Bring them over here."
She marched back to the box while he took a seat and carried it over. For all of his arrogance, he could be a gentleman sometimes, she mused, as he reached, "I'll take that. Why don't you, um-"
At his gesture, she propped herself on the chair's arm with a small smile. He returned it, while they shared a quiet moment, and she began to dab makeup on his face gently.
"I gotta say; it's hard to get a read on you. Where are you from?"
Natasha felt that she was slipping, if he was asking her questions. Of course she knew what he meant, but as she worked carefully to cover the bruising on his face, she simply replied, "Legal."
He grimaced, unhappy with her perfunctory answer, but he moved on quickly, as usual, "Can I ask you a question -hypothetically? Bit odd...if this was your last...birthday party you were ever gonna have, how would you celebrate it?" He asked the question without looking at her, rubbing his eyes and pinching his nose, and she knew that he was having an intense internal struggle.
She found herself feeling empathetic for him, and so she gave him a real answer, "I would do whatever I wanted to do. With whoever I wanted to do it with."
It was the truth. And that was why she took her leave at that time, abruptly standing and walking out.
Natasha walked into their conversation; when there was a pause in their speaking, she approached, "We've secured the perimeter, Director, but I don't think we should hold it for much longer."
She ignored Tony's look of shock, wearing the same polite smile that she always did.
"You're...fired..." he muttered.
Another smile, "That's not for you to decide."
While Fury introduced her, Tony met her eyes and held them until he felt it necessary to speak again. She still just smiled at him, genuinely amused by both Tony and Fury; the battle of wits was as intense and fast as a round of ping-pong, she mused.
Fury brought out of her brief reverie, "...the question is what do you need from us?"
At the turn in the conversation, she stood to retrieve the lithium-dioxide syringe, and at Fury's command, "Punch it," she injected it into Tony's neck, pressing a hand to his cheek to bend his neck, checking the marks, and turning his head toward her to check the other side. Content with her findings, she returned to her seat next to Fury.
She had vaguely heard him mention the Southwest region, and her mind wandered again – do whatever I want with whoever I wanted to do it with – until it was time to move again.
Tony was annoyed; he was livid. He was shocked. Natalie – no, he reminded himself, Natasha – had played him like a fiddle, every note tuned to perfection, so that he would let her in. Being attracted to a woman and talking perhaps more than he should was nothing new to him, of course, but this feeling of being violated was. At least, being violated and not enjoying it was new.
It did briefly occur to him that perhaps this was what it felt like to be on the other side of Tony most of the time: outwitted and shockingly alone come the morning. He stamped down that feeling quickly. The videos of his father didn't help. They only served to leave an even more bitter taste in his mouth, and he found himself mentally chiding SHIELD for bringing this to his attention. But he was feeling better; he had to hand it to them.
Tony's new lease on life was what led him to Stark Industries in the first place, to approach Pepper and apologize, try to explain what was going on. He wasn't cured, he reminded himself, so he needed to make amends, be honest with her.
It didn't go quite the way he expected, and he was already flustered when Happy came in with Natasha – no, he reminded himself, Natalie. He was flustered and all of those other negative emotions, so he couldn't hold his tongue.
"Natalie, how are you blending in here? It is Natalie, isn't it?"
The glare that she shot him felt uncomfortably close to being stabbed, but he felt a little internal victory dance at it just the same. He gave her an innocent smile, and he could feel her ire washing over him. He would have laughed, but he wasn't stupid. He watched with some detachment and a little twinge of sadness as Pepper prepared to leave and asked "Natalie" to arrange the removal of Tony's things from the office.
He hadn't told Pepper anything, and he actually resented the fact that Natasha knew about it and didn't say anything, either.
"I'm surprised you can keep your mouth shut," she snapped, landing the first blow.
He turned on her, "God, you're good. You are mind blowingly good at this. How do you do it? You're a triple imposter. I've never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?"
She bristled at his words, glared at him, and muttered something that he didn't understand; it could have been Latin, or it could have been Farsi for all he knew.
"Which means?"
She began to walk around him toward the door, but he wasn't about to let her have the last word...that wasn't asking for meaning, "Wait, what did you just say?"
At the door, her fingers wrapped around the handle, she glared at him again, "It means you can either drive yourself home, or I can have you collected." The door slammed shut behind her.
He felt a little better about things, then. Still, he felt a raging fire just beneath the surface, which sent the strawberries flying into the garbage can.
As it turned out, Tony's best work came out of being angry.
