Note:Sorry about the delay on this chapter. I have one or two more chapters nearly finished that I'll have up in a day or so. I wrote them out of order. Apologies!
Chapter 10: Romanoff
Back in her hotel room, Laurel paced furiously. She hadn't meant to drop her invisibility. It had been a subconscious decision, made in a split-second of weakness. "I'm just like those criminals that are so proud of their own cleverness that they want to get caught by the police," she remonstrated with herself.
She was panicking a little, because he had seen her face. Jarvis had seen her face. If Tony had been anyone else, she would have returned and Obliviated him. She was angry at herself for her carelessness, but not nearly as angry as she ought to be, which made her even angrier…and a little frightened. Laurel had wanted him to see her for quite a while. Now he had, and she felt altogether unprepared for the consequences. The game had continued for so long that she didn't quite know what to do now that it had changed.
The witch couldn't decide how to behave. She supposed that she should carry on as she had before. It would be the safest route. Perhaps none of his cameras had managed to get a clear shot. Running a slim hand through her perpetually messy hair, Laurel tried to convince herself that her fears were all for nothing. The attempt wasn't particularly successful. If she had learned anything in the last few months, it was not to underestimate Tony Stark.
That night, Tony had his first dream about her. The witch was just as elusive in his subconscious as she was in reality. In his sleep, he remembered those bright, far-too-green eyes, the self-possessed, slightly mocking tilt of her lips, and how her slender, supple body had pressed against his for one long, charged moment. But in his dream, when he tried to embrace her, she fluidly slipped out of his grasp and returned to the shadows, gracing him with a taunting laugh before disappearing altogether.
He woke frustrated, feeling rather like he had stumbled into a fairy ring. According to tradition, if a man entered one of those sacred circles and glimpsed an elf, he would be captivated by her illusions forever afterward. Frowning, he acknowledged to himself that he was pretty damn captivated. Trying to shake off the feelings of futility dredged up by his dream, he wandered down to the lab to see if Jarvis had made any progress with his image search.
The wait maddened him. His AI had detected her twice, once outside a restaurant, and another time as she walked down a busy street. On both occasions, he gave pursuit, but she was long gone by the time he arrived, landing as Iron Man amid a crowd of curious and excited bystanders. Never a very patient man, especially now that he had so little time to live, the inventor came up with another scheme while Jarvis continued with the cameras. Perhaps a gift was in order. She had given him so much, and it couldn't hurt to reciprocate. All women liked jewelry, right?
Ever since their encounter, his visitor had continued to drop in and pretend that nothing had changed between them. She had remained invisible, left his coffees and usually a newspaper clipping or two, and sometimes spared a few written words for him in the evenings. He found this infuriating, because he had been so close. He had had her in his grasp, and foolishly released her, thinking his victory already secure.
This particular evening, Tony was in his home gym. Laurel hardly ever ventured into that part of the house, because Tony was rarely there at night; but his bodyguard, Happy, had dropped by and the two were sparring. Spock intently watched the fight from a padded work-out bench, occasionally emitting a soft, disapproving growl.
The witch observed for a little while, noting that the engineer moved with grace and agility—not qualities one normally associated with someone that donned metal armor to fight. His friend was larger and heavier, with a longer reach, but the inventor was swift and clever, instantly calculating each move with lethal precision.
The witch didn't know how long they had been boxing before she had arrived, but both seemed to be flagging. Their movements grew notably slower and clumsier over the next half hour; but they doggedly continued, neither wanting to give in. Laurel actually felt relieved when Pepper arrived with Tony's new personal assistant in tow. She impatiently leaned forward, wanting to find out everything about this new character coming on the scene.
When she saw the woman Pepper had brought to introduce to Tony, her first thought was that the redhead was either the most secure woman that had ever lived or that she didn't really care much about her romantic attachment to Tony. The new assistant was supermodel-gorgeous, with a body that had probably been immortalized in poetry or sculpture at some point. Laurel's eyebrows rose as she listened to Pepper rattle off the crimson-haired beauty's qualifications. Fluent in several languages? Modeled in Tokyo? The witch was officially impressed.
Dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, drenched in sweat and looking incredibly ill, Tony stepped out of the ring and came to greet the women. His eyes looked enormous and almost black beside the sickly pallor of his skin. Laurel's niggling worry that he might be unwell persisted. She felt like she had overlooked something important when it came to him. Tony was always checking some sort of levels that had to do with his arc reactor. Perhaps it had side effects. Or maybe it was somehow shortening his lifespan. She would have to look into it, because she couldn't stand the thought of anything bad happening to him. Laurel had never felt so protective of someone else in her life. She wasn't quite sure why. Tony Stark was about the furthest thing from a damsel in distress. He was a superhero, for Merlin's sake. But the more she saw of him, the more valuable he seemed.
Her respect for the tall, voluptuous new hire turned to suspicion when Tony cajoled her into the ring with his driver, Happy. She moved as quickly as a black mamba, using every part of her body to incapacitate the much larger man in less than a heartbeat. Laurel was sure this Natalie's legs had been around his neck. She narrowed her eyes, because the only people likely to have those kinds of skills were ninjas, assassins, and other dangerous, well-trained, mercenary types.
Iron Man might be a hero, but Tony Stark was vulnerable and well-known. Besides the terrorists that might want Iron Man out of the picture, there were plenty of other people that coveted Tony's technology, or the man himself. Even the government was after his tech. She remembered the acquisitive gleam in Col. Rhodes' eyes when he had asked about Tony's old suit. She was reasonably sure that his avarice was on behalf of his employers; although no doubt they had promised that he would wear the suit and serve as the new, officially-sanctioned Iron Man if he managed to pry one out of its creator's hands. Her common sense told her that Rhodes wasn't the only avenue being pursued by the government. In any case, Ms. Rushman was about to be thoroughly investigated.
Tony flirted outrageously with both the redheads, but his heart didn't seem to be in it. Eventually, his guests took their leave and he disappeared around the corner, presumably to take a shower. Laurel didn't know whether or not to wait for him in the lab. Finally, she decided that a stalker ought not to care about things like appearing too needy, and apparated downstairs. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a small silver package lying on the work table where she usually left his coffee. A metallic green bow topped the square surface, with a gift tag peeking out from under the ribbon. The witch expected a trap, and deliberated for several moments before reaching out and snatching up the box.
The wrapping felt silky against her hesitant fingers; but she relaxed a bit when no needle pricked her skin or tiny capsule sprayed chemicals in her face. The card read, "To the green-eyed goddess of stalkers, pyrotechnicians and engineers No hard feelings. From, your devotee."
Still suspicious, but already smiling, Laurel gingerly plucked the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box. Inside lay a beautiful bracelet of gems and woven metal. Its gossamer threads glimmered in the light, setting off the large diamonds that sprinkled it to great effect. She couldn't quite determine its construction, because it gleamed strangely and sat so lightly and delicately in her hand. It seemed silvery at first; but when she shifted her grip, the metal glinted gold.
At some point during her awed perusal, Tony had reentered the lab. His black hair still shone wetly from his shower. The witch suspected that Jarvis must have notified him that she had discovered the package. "It's gold-titanium alloy," the inventor spoke up. "The same as my suit. Actually, the very same. The scrap metal was what I had lying around my lab when I made it."
"And I suppose the diamonds were also just 'lying around your lab'," Laurel retorted via the whiteboard.
He felt a little anxious that she would realize he'd chosen that metal because it was his own particular alloy. The engineer secretly liked the idea of sharing a connection with her, of them being the only two people in the world to don that metal; it was almost like having her wear his colors. Tony gave an exaggerated shrug and said flippantly, "Well, no, but…I mean, I know it's just a trinket to you. You could probably make something like this just as easily with your magic. I remember when you created that sword with the huge emeralds."
Horrified that he would denigrate something so beautiful, she exclaimed, "You're wrong. In order to create something, I first have to imagine it. I could never have envisioned anything so exquisite. The design is intricate and unique. I've never seen a piece that is more to my taste."
"Flatterer," he retorted laughingly.
"Sometimes," she agreed easily, "but never to you. And it's nothing less than the truth when I say that you make quite the gifted goldsmith….At the risk of sounding appallingly sentimental, this gift is even more precious because you made it with your own hands."
Tony blinked as he read the words. He had honestly thought that his present would just be a cheap token to her; and the idea that it had value because it had come from him, because he had made it, slowly filled him with warmth.
Even though it had been cleverly hidden, Laurel had detected the tracking device in the clasp almost immediately because she had been looking for it. "Although I doubt you'll still want me to have it when I tell you that I plan to disable the tracker," she added ruefully.
He laughed aloud, having expected her to find it all along. But what she didn't know, and hadn't discovered, was that in addition to the obvious microchip in the clasp, one of the diamonds wasn't really a diamond. It was an extremely sophisticated construct of nanoparticles, which made up an optoelectronic tracking device. He defied her to find that, even with her magic. The inventor replied, "I made it for you, and refuse to take it back. Consider it spoils of war."
"Is that a declaration of surrender?" she teased.
"Now? When I'm so close to victory?" he asked incredulously.
"What do you expect to win?" she asked in genuine curiosity.
He seemed surprised by the question, opening and closing his mouth several times. "I want to unravel all your secrets until I know you like nobody else does," he finally declared boldly.
"And what would you do with that knowledge?" she inquired, leaning forward intently.
"Well, first I would gloat extensively. That goes without saying. And then I would ask a million questions….But mostly I'd just…savor it," he replied, smiling lazily in her general direction with half-lidded eyes.
It occurred to Laurel that if he didn't stop being so adorable, she'd soon be in serious trouble. Not quite knowing how to respond, she cleared her throat and wrote, "My thanks. I'm certain that when I wear it, I'll think of you."
He tried to ignore the way the blood suddenly surged in his ears. "You know," he blurted suddenly. "I'm going to Monte Carlo in five days; and there's going to be a party Friday night at the Hôtel de Paris. You could come—if you want. I could finally return the favor and buy you a drink, and you could protect me from all the gold-diggers and politicians.
"We could have a truce, just for the night. I wouldn't have home-field advantage anymore….Actually, you don't even have to make yourself visible if you don't want to, as long as you come. Please? I hate drinking alone, and I hate drinking with stupid people. It's really a catch-22, unless you show up to break the vicious cycle. What do you say?"
"…I will think about it," she wrote, unable to give a flat denial when he genuinely seemed to want her there.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters
"I met Stark tonight, and don't think there will be any problems on that front. I had him eating out of my hand," Romanoff reported, lounging catlike in the uncomfortable chair in front of Nick Fury's desk. "I wasn't able to gain access to his personal laboratory tonight, but it won't be hard to manufacture a reason in the next few days. I start as his personal assistant tomorrow."
The one-eyed director observed her thoughtfully; feeling much more relaxed now that he had one of his people on the Stark situation. He had been immensely irritated with the billionaire when he'd postponed hiring his new assistant. It had left Romanoff in town for weeks with nothing to do, and she was far too valuable an asset to keep on ice. "There's no immediate rush, he began. "Don't raise his suspicions….There's something else I want you to look into."
"Oh?" she asked, raising one shapely eyebrow.
"Stark has been hacking into several databases. He's looking at CCTV cameras all over the area, linking them to his own facial recognition software. He's been searching for one face in particular. We believe it's this one," Fury declared, quickly pulling up a few video frames on his wall monitor.
The assassin stared at the footage. The recordings had been taken on two separate occasions, but the woman in the shots was definitely the same.
"Look at the way she raises her sunglasses to wink up at the traffic cam," Romanoff pointed, as the second video looped back around. "She knows he'll see."
"Or at least she's hoping he will….Stark flew to these locations as Iron Man minutes after she passed through. He didn't manage to catch her either time, which is strange. You would think that once he had a lock on her with the cameras, he could just follow her progress and cut her off," he pondered, freezing the frame, and catching a glimpse of bright, pale eyes in the Jane Doe's face.
"Who is she?" asked Romanoff interestedly, noting that the woman didn't seem particularly remarkable, in her Iron Man t-shirt and jean skirt.
"That's what I need you to find out. No identity goes with this face. As far as anyone knows, she doesn't exist," he retorted sternly. "Find out who she is, and more importantly, who she's working for."
"Stark knows her," the voluptuous spy observed, wondering what the woman had done to gain the undivided attention of one of the most powerful men in the world.
"Yes, they've definitely been in contact, and that's exactly what's so worrying," Fury replied ominously, staring with narrowed eyes at the video monitor long after Romanoff left the room.
Laurel had been on tenterhooks since Tony and Jarvis had spotted her. Two days afterwards, just as she had left a restaurant and automatically raised her Notice-Me-Not Charm, she'd heard a commotion behind her. It was Iron Man fending off legions of fans and sweeping his hidden gaze back and forth…searching for her. The cameras. It had to be. She had noticed them when she'd turned on the porch to look at the sea before leaving.
Even though she was awed by his capabilities and a little bit afraid that he'd found her once, Laurel was a gambler and a risk-taker at heart. So instead of leaving town or doing anything a sensible person might do, she bought an Iron Man t-shirt from a street vendor and wore it out the next day, looking straight up at a camera and winking.
She had waited and watched, and sure enough, Iron Man had dropped from the sky almost exactly where she'd stood moments before. That was confirmation enough for her that these cameras were responsible for his newfound tracking ability. From now on, she would have to be very careful not to let down her guard in the city. All she needed was Iron Man attracting a huge crowd and drawing attention to her. Mass Obliviations weren't outside her scope of ability, but became much trickier when cameras were involved. Also, sometimes it was difficult to spot all the witnesses. How many murderers and mobsters had been laid low by some innocuous spectator that had slipped under their radar? It wasn't a position she wanted to find herself in, but unless she took care, it was an inevitability.
Because Laurel felt on shaky ground when it came to Tony, she spent the next couple of days trailing his new assistant and trying to think about him as little as possible. It was harder for her to keep up the silent, invisible act these days than it had been in years. All of a sudden, she was bursting with conversation. Every time she saw anything funny, or interesting, or difficult to understand, she wanted to talk to Tony about it.
She kept up her good deeds, but now they usually took place after closing hours. Frequently, her exploits didn't make it into the paper; and on those days, she would leave Tony a note instead of a clipping. The one she had dropped off this morning read, "Two children, Brittle Bone Disease, Chicago. Treated with single dose of the potion Skele-Gro every day for three days. Result: Bones now strong. Bodies have adapted and started producing collagen at normal rates. Experiment successful."
Her memos to Stark might have been cold and clinical, just a clumsy effort to reach out to him and please him; but she had no idea how much he treasured this tangible evidence that she craved his admiration. Tony marveled at the miracles she accomplished, and at the fact that she openly confessed to doing them for him. He saved all of her notes and clippings in a cigar box that he hid in his closet, and tried not to think too hard about his sudden foray into hoarding.
The task Laurel had set herself proved incredibly boring, because the new hire was never left alone. Pepper guided her around company headquarters and taught her the job, which seemed to involve a lot of scheduling and calls. Laurel felt a little bad for Rushman. Nearly every office worker she passed craned their neck to follow the motion of her body. The witch knew from experience that it was exhausting to be ogled constantly. Back in the wizarding world, she had been a familiar face and hadn't been able go anywhere without being scrutinized by judging eyes. It had been a slightly different scenario, because people hadn't been eying her for her sex appeal, but the experience had been quite uncomfortable all the same.
On the third day, Pepper finally left her fledgling employee to her own devices. Laurel had become a bit complacent, following closely behind the redheaded assistant whenever she ran errands. In spite of her allure, Ms. Rushman knew how to take care of business. A sharp mind lurked behind that seductive charm. The witch found herself bored to death, noting that if she had Rushman's job and had to argue with twittering imbeciles all day, the Imperius Curse might see quite a bit more use than it currently did.
On day four, Laurel was ready to give up. Rushman hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't a crime to be good at her job. It wasn't even a crime to call Tony and say, "Hello, Mr. Stark," in a low, sultry voice that might as well have been saying, "Happy birthday, Mr. President;" although Laurel secretly felt that this should, in fact, be considered a crime. She told herself that she wasn't jealous, just…concerned.
But Rushman never departed the straight and narrow. She hadn't even approached Tony in person yet. So far, she had opted to contact him by phone because of the backlog of work she'd acquired during the transition. Iron Man was in high demand, and now that the Expo had started, so was Tony Stark. Rushman had been swamped with requests for his appearance by everyone imaginable—media outlets, visiting dignitaries, celebrities, charitable organizations, et alia. She was also kept busy making the arrangements for his impending visit to Monaco.
Absentmindedly counting Rushman's steps as she strode purposefully towards the elevator, Laurel forgot her suspicions and walked a little too close to her heels. All at once, the redhead spun around, sweeping a long leg in an arc around her. Her foot nearly caught Laurel in the ribs, and if the assistant's pencil-skirt had allowed for better range of motion, she would have had a direct hit. The witch leaned backwards in surprise and lost her balance, landing on her tailbone with a painful impact. Scooting backwards on her rump, the witch stared warily up at the woman, who no longer seemed the least bit friendly or harmless. Rushman probed in every direction with her calculating eyes, and at one point even seemed to sniff the air.
That encounter rekindled Laurel's suspicions; and she wasn't even surprised when, at the end of the day, Rushman effortlessly broke into Tony's empty office. The spacious room adjoined the redhead's own office, and she padded in as though she owned the place, sitting down at the desk and firing up the computer. Rushman pulled a small device out of her skirt pocket and slipped it into one of the side slots. Laurel had never seen any technology like this before. It didn't look like a traditional flash drive.
The witch grudgingly admired the other's cold-blooded efficiency, and probably would have let her carry on with her business if her actions had threatened anyone but Tony. But the brazen spy had made the mistake of targeting the one muggle in the whole world that mattered to Laurel; and for that, she had just gained a magical opponent.
Leery of approaching too closely after her earlier experience, Laurel carefully eased around the desk and looked over the former-model's shoulder. Somehow, the woman had already circumvented his password to gain entry. She was currently trying to access his engineering files—probably hoping they were his suit specs. The witch had seen enough, and cast a Confundus Charm on the spy. If she had known that Rushman was malicious in the beginning, she would have just read her mind and saved herself the trouble of following her around to her dull day job.
The witch followed up the Confundus with a light Compulsion Charm before the dazed look had quite faded from her eyes. "While you were in the lady's room, you dropped your little metal spy gadget into the toilet and it was flushed away….Now, take me to your leader," Laurel whispered, carefully modifying the assistant's memory after she had exited Tony's office in an enchanted haze.
Pocketing the device, the witch followed the beautiful spy out to her car, a black BMW—probably government-issue, now that she thought about it. She followed along in her Animagus form, unable to decide whether she felt happy or sad about her instincts being proved correct. It sickened her that so many people tried to prey on Tony. And Rushman! The inventor had been so kind to her the other night, bantering back and forth and insisting that Pepper make sure to give her a nice office and parking spot. He didn't deserve this treatment, and Laurel wouldn't allow it to continue. No one but her was allowed to get the best of Tony Stark.
The witch transformed and sped up to make it into the darkened bar before the door fell shut behind Rushman. She tailed her over to a plush booth, where a muscular, shrewd-looking man with an eyepatch awaited her. He wore a tough, black leather coat that seemed expensive, but too warm for the mild California weather. Perhaps he was just passing through.
He nodded at the spy and said, "Romanoff, your report."
When Laurel heard him call the woman by another name, she realized that this wasn't some employee that had been turned, but an operative maneuvered into position for a specific purpose. She had feared as much….Just who were these people?
For the first time since the witch had starting observing her, Rush—no, Romanoff—displayed an emotion that was less than flattering. Confusion and embarrassment warred in her features. "My observation period ended yesterday, and today was the first real opportunity I had to act without suspicion, but I had a…mishap," she admitted with a self-directed frown.
"Were you caught?" he asked in concern.
"No, but I need new tech. The device was damaged and I wasn't able to implant the virus," she confessed delicately.
Laurel smirked at how carefully the agent was avoiding the particulars. But she supposed spies generally didn't drop expensive equipment in the loo—unless they wanted to be known as the Agent Clouseau of the department.
"You need to get closer to Stark. He's behaving erratically, even more so now than usual. Appointing his old secretary CEO of his company, withdrawing from the public eye….Something's going on with him. Something big," the man declared.
Laurel blinked at that. How had she not noticed? She made the worst spy ever, she thought to herself ruefully.
"He looks sick in his recent photographs," the man continued. "Perhaps his old substance abuse problems are back. I need you to find out exactly how big a liability he is and whether we need to neutralize him."
At his talk of 'neutralizing' Tony, Laurel saw red. Decisively, she reached out and touched the edges of his mind. And what an interesting mind it was. So he was Nick Fury, the director of this S.H.I.E.L.D. A government agency. Figures. This organization was entirely too concerned with Tony if the director himself was personally involved. She would follow him back to his headquarters and see what she could learn.
Laurel toyed with the idea of casting a mild Bad Luck Jinx on Romanoff, but hesitated to do that to anyone that would be operating a motor vehicle. She slipped out of her booth and moved to the empty one behind Fury. It gave her a view of Romanoff's face, and the thoughts swirling around her surprised Laurel. This was a woman that had experienced untold horrors, but they'd made her strong and dangerous. She didn't bear Stark any ill-will. It was all business with her.
While she listened, she conjured a pen and took careful notes. When their food arrived and the conversation slowed down, Laurel began doodling. She idly stared at the back of Fury's shiny bald head, bisected by the elastic band that secured his eyepatch. Suddenly she had an idea—a terrible, wonderful, completely depraved idea. Transfiguring the pen into a black Sharpie marker, she drew the outline of a thong on the paper before her, with a small shield emblazoned on the crotch. Summoning a red permanent marker, she colored in the underwear. Then, she transferred all of the color off the paper and onto the back of Fury's head. His eyepatch strap made a perfect waistband for the brightly-colored thong.
She was glad she'd cast a Silencing Charm on herself, because she started giggling like a little kid and couldn't stop. Summoning her camera from her bottomless bag, she snapped a few still pics to cheer up Tony. He would need something to lighten his spirits once he found out that his new assistant was a traitor. Laurel kept the camera out, because she fully intended to capture the timeless moment when Fury became aware of his condition with its video feature. If the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was pranked and Tony didn't get to watch, well, that would be a travesty.
Laurel was laughing so hard that she didn't notice when the waitress came to seat people at her booth. Suddenly, two sweaty, beefy guys slid in across from her. Just as their even larger companion was about to crush her against the wall, she reluctantly Disapparated, sulking as she was forced to wait for the agents out in the parking lot.
When Nick Fury left, she flew along behind him as he traveled north, to one of his smaller compounds just outside Sun Valley. It looked like a military base, but could conceivably have been mistaken for a manufacturing plant. Fury headed straight for a large room full of computers and said something to one of his agents, who was wearing a solid black catsuit.
Laurel couldn't stand the suspense, but eventually some brave soul pointed out Fury's decorative new addition. After two people volunteered their hand mirrors, he finally saw the image for himself. He stared dumbstruck for several long moments, floored by the sheer audacity of the 'artist'. When his tantrum finally came, it was delightfully epic. "G******it! Who the f*** drew a mother******* dick on the back of my head?" he exploded, terrifying a few interns and leaving most of the agents with desperately twitching lips.
Somebody pulled out a camera phone, and he bellowed, "Stevens, if you don't stow that phone right now, I'll shove it where it'll set off every metal detector you encounter for the rest of your life."
His minion meekly did as he was told, but Fury knew that even without physical documentation, the thong incident would not be forgotten by anyone in the room. No doubt it would live on in the agency's oral traditions.
After the excitement had died down, Laurel put her camera back in her pocket and began to wander. She looked around for the oldest analyst she could find, hoping that his security clearance would be commensurate with his age. When that didn't work, she fell back on passive legilimency. Apparently, as high-tech as they were, S.H.I.E.L.D. actually kept paper files. When she reached the records room, a young guard stood posted beside the thick, metal entryway. Laurel ignored him, peering through the grate and then apparating directly inside. It didn't take long for her to discover some damning information. There were files on Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury, but even she could see that they were woefully incomplete. But even the censored, G-rated versions came with photographs, and would prove that Rushman was a government plant.
She shamelessly began reading Tony's file, after casting a quick Obscuring Charm on the four ceiling cameras. The witch saw that some agent named Phil Coulson had collected most of the information on the inventor. Apparently, Romanoff had been appointed as Coulson's replacement. It was unclear whether the agent had been needed elsewhere, or whether Fury had thought a beautiful woman might be more successful at making Stark talk, considering his playboy reputation.
The more she dug, the more interesting the documentation. It appeared that Tony was being assessed for something called the Avengers Initiative. They had made a side-note that he had already turned them down, but that certainly wasn't stopping them. Bastards. The other Avenger candidates were interesting. Basically, S.H.I.E.L.D. was blackmailing or conscripting anyone with special powers. Surprisingly, Romanoff was one. Codename: Black Widow. Specialization: assassin. Tony really had the worst sort of luck, she mused.
This Agent Coulson seemed to be a sort of Avenger liaison, and his file was full of paperwork about people he had already managed to recruit. She collected and duplicated all the records for everyone mentioned, and the list of likely candidates. She shuddered to think of her name appearing on that list. Deciding that she'd rather read over everything in her hotel room, she disapparated, leaving the original records just as she'd found them.
Four hours and two visits to the minibar later, Laurel tried to make sense of what she'd discovered. S.H.I.E.L.D. was dangerous, and ubiquitous. They might just be the most powerful military force in the world, and they had Tony-her wonderful, gentle, merry-hearted Tony-in their sights. They wanted his suits, but weren't so sure they wanted the man. Apparently, they had instructed him to keep his identity as Iron Man a secret. If he hadn't abandoned his cue cards on live television, he would probably have already been 'neutralized' and some government toady would be prancing about in his suit.
Deciding that the inventor needed to know what she'd found right away, she began a note to him. She was feeling incredibly worried and protective, but decided that her letter should stick to the facts. Logic had always comforted her (maybe because of its rarity in the wizarding world); and she suspected that a scientist might share that feeling. She didn't know whether to mention Fury's talk of 'neutralization'. It was a rather ambiguous term, and she didn't want Tony to be unduly alarmed, because he would probably be forced to work with these people at some point, at least in a limited capacity. Besides, no one was going to touch a hair on his head while she was around. It would take a long time, but perhaps she should use legilimency on the rest of his employees and see if she couldn't ferret out any more traitors. That would be a gift that Tony could appreciate.
That afternoon, Tony found a neat stack of folders waiting for him on his workbench with a letter on top on crisp…parchment? How bizarre. The inventor smiled absently to himself as he set about finding what his little witch was up to this time. After he read the first line, the smile dropped from his face.
Tony, Natalie Rushman works for S.H.I.E.L.D. under a man named Nick Fury. She is an extremely dangerous Russian assassin named Natasha Romanoff. Codename: Black Widow. She is apparently vetting you for something called the Avengers Initiative, but espionage is not off the table either. I caught her trying to hack into your suit files earlier. I distracted her, but she will try again now that she has almost unlimited access to the building, although I don't think there's a way to keep someone like her out. She's apparently a super spy. I went to their headquarters (address below) and found all the files that seemed relevant. The next move is yours. Choose wisely. Your resident poltergeist P.S. I lifted the device in this baggy off Romanoff earlier today when she broke into your office and tried to use it on your computer. I heard her say something about it being a virus. P.P.S. Enjoy the pictures of Mr. Fury with my compliments. P.P.P.S. The video is even better.
Tony had cultivated an image of himself as a flippant, absentminded inventor that loathed reading and research. It made everyone underestimate him delightfully, but he could be deadly serious when he needed to be. He read, and allowed himself a brief moment of hurt and regret that the beautiful redhead that had so intrigued him had been an assassin. Perhaps she was meant to take care of the 'cleanup' in case S.H.I.E.L.D. decided that he was too powerful to be allowed to operate outside their Aegis, but wasn't Avengers material.
He pondered what to do, and examined the device Laurel had liberated from the agent. He had a fairly good idea of what it was. No doubt it was meant to infect Jarvis with spyware, so that they could monitor all his activities and inventions. Tony was leaving for Monaco the next morning, and 'Rushman' would be on the plane with him. It would probably be safer to wait to deal with her until he returned home. Perhaps he could reassign her so that she had less access to anything sensitive. He found the idea of keeping the assassin around to be deeply creepy, but knew that if he fired her, Fury would just send someone else. Also, he would want to know how his agent had been compromised and view him as even more of a threat than he already did. Any way he looked at it, he was in a very difficult situation.
His day improved significantly when he picked up the small digital camera. Gasping in speechless glee, the inventor savored the proud moment when he realized that his witch had gotten one over on the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. The still shots were good, but Fury's meltdown was priceless. He laughed so hard that he actually fell over, and almost couldn't catch his breath to tell Jarvis that there was nothing wrong with him, and that he shouldn't call the paramedics.
Monaco
Tony sat at the bar of the legendary Hôtel de Paris in utter boredom. He had already had run-ins with Justin Hammer and Christine Holier-Than-Thou-Even-Though-I-Fell-Into-Your-Bed-On-Our-First-Meeting-and-Wrote-Gossip-About-Your-Personal-Life-For-A-Fashion-Rag-Everhart (Okay, so maybe he was a little bitter). He and Pepper had arrived together, but she had split off from him the moment they'd entered the door, wanting to make the rounds and sooth bloated egos. Tony felt thankful that she was willing to do it, because he couldn't be bothered. He had reached that dangerous stage of drinking, where he had had just enough alcohol to make him tired and lethargic, but not nearly enough to buoy his enthusiasm or dull his devastating wit. Hammer had found that out the hard way, Tony thought with grim satisfaction. The other man had practically limped away from their earlier sparring. But now the engineer had no one to play with.
Several people he knew had approached him, and been summarily greeted with false smiles and a few lines of polite small-talk…or the occasional bit of trash-talk. Beautiful, gold-digging women always flocked to him, hoping that he would see something unique in their mass-produced personas. He looked past them, unable even to pretend to listen to their prattling now that he had no interest in sleeping with any of them. Some fans had greeted him, and that had been rather more pleasant, but the party was just so dull. The music sounded like something he'd heard in an elevator fifteen-years-ago; the women all struck him as insipid; and Justin Hammer was there. That fact alone significantly lowered the party's potential.
Glancing over at a table near the dance floor, he spotted Rushman—no, Romanoff, charming two young security guards. While she laughed her sultry laugh, her cold gaze roamed around the room, taking in its every nuance. How could he not have realized that she was a spy? The graceful, dangerous way she moved, the hard glint that never left those lovely, grey-green eyes…everything about her practically screamed 'predator'. He hoped she didn't approach him. Since Laurel's revelations, he had barely found it in himself to be civil to his new assistant, and avoided her as much as possible, knowing that the trained spy would pick up on his uncharacteristic, icy reserve. But he felt worn and heartsick at reaping betrayal at every turn. He had taken a chance on Natalie Rushman, had offered her a job and his friendship, only to discover that she meant to compromise Jarvis, help steal the things he had made, and force him into indentured servitude to a government agency. He quickly looked away and downed the rest of his drink.
Before he could beckon the bartender over, the inventor caught sight of something that almost made him fall off his stool. In a form-fitting, Grecian-style gown in emerald green, his little sorceress swept into the room as if she owned the place. No one seemed to notice her presence, and he couldn't understand why. She was mesmerizing. Her collarbone and one white arm were completely bare, save for the diamond bracelet (his diamond bracelet, he noticed with a thrill), which encircled her delicate wrist. The dress was pinned at one shoulder, with golden fretwork adorning the neckline, and gauze fluttering breezily over her other arm, almost pooling at the floor. Her calculating green gaze swept the room, finding him almost immediately. Her lips quirked up slightly in greeting as she prowled towards him, and Tony's boredom evaporated, to be replaced with the keen sense of exhilaration that she always evoked in him.
"Is this seat taken?" she drawled, amusement playing around her mouth as she drank in the engineer's astonished expression.
"You actually came," he murmured in awe, as she boldly perched beside him, so close that he could feel the fabric of her skirts brush against his legs.
Glancing up and meeting his profound dark eyes, Laurel retorted playfully, "Well, I was invited. How could I resist a foray into the neutral zone? It's only sporting."
"After you slithered out of my grasp the other night, I thought you didn't have much use for 'sportsmanship'," he snorted.
"My dear Mr. Stark, I have a use for everything," her smile was sharp and predatory, and made his pulse pound loudly in his ears.
The witch had seen him in a suit before, but it had been from a distance. Up close, his bone structure seemed almost aristocratic, from his well-carved cheekbones to his straight nose to his strong chin. He bore the evidence of his mother's Italian heritage in his glossy dark hair and perpetual tan. His regular features guaranteed a degree of handsomeness, but his looks weren't what made him so compelling.
She would never have described him as her ideal. She had always preferred tall, lean men with posh accents and long, pale throats, but Stark never played by the rules. In spite of preferences and common sense, she found him devastatingly attractive, but supposed it was only natural. Tony would be hard-pressed to find a woman that didn't find him irresistible. Who could deny his charisma and vitality, those dark eyes that blazed with preternatural intelligence, his wonderful humor and astonishing depths of goodness? Not her, apparently.
"And what use have you found for me?" the inventor asked, trying not to show how interested he was to hear the answer.
She favored him with a sinful smile. "I'm finding it hard to narrow it down to one. You seem very…versatile."
Laurel would normally never be so forward with anyone, but she had an unprecedented level of comfort with Tony. She had watched him in his dirty work clothes as he guzzled coffee, traded insults with Jarvis, and had long, one-sided conversations with his dog about applied physics. She had seen his heart, and now she felt like she knew him.
"Are you flirting with me, C.B.?" he quipped, basking in her attention.
"Just making conversation," she retorted airily, although her teasing grin belied her words.
Leaning towards her and surreptitiously sniffing her hair, he said sotto voce, "For the record, if you were, I wouldn't mind."
"But sadly, the lovely Ms. Potts probably would," she rejoined, eyes sparkling with mirth.
"Look at you, always thinking of others," he pouted playfully.
Laurel snickered and asked, "Was that a compliment or an accusation?"
"What do you think?" he rejoined, as he busily tried to commit her appearance to memory.
"I think that only a lover could make that an accusation. Since you're not, you must have meant it as a compliment, so I'll thank you for it," she reasoned, a gleam of challenge flashing up at him from under her lashes.
Tony loved having her undivided focus. Experiencing the full force of that bright gaze was the most intoxicating feeling he knew. He had always enjoyed attention—he blamed his loveless childhood for that—but didn't quite know what to make of his sudden desperate craving for her regard. He was only aware of his overwhelming need because it was being fed, but he shuddered to think of the devastating withdrawal he would experience if he lost her interest. After a moment of reflection, he supposed it was a moot point, because he would probably die before that could occur.
"If you're really feeling grateful, you might tell me your name," he ventured nonchalantly.
"I thought men liked mystery. Anyway, does it really matter?" she murmured disinterestedly, and scrambled for something to say that would distract him from further questing.
"I'd like to know who to pray to," Tony rejoined with a smirk, uttering the cheesy remark with enviable confidence.
She groaned and dropped her head at the terrible line, but couldn't help but be a little charmed at the same time. His force of personality could cover a multitude of sins.
"Hold off on that," she laughed. "Even I know that things don't tend to go particularly well for anyone that's ascribed divine honors. Besides, if you want something, you only need ask. It's not necessary to get on your knees."
"What if I want to?" he smirked cheekily.
With a grin fighting to mar her deadpan expression, Laurel retorted, "You just had to take it there, didn't you?"
"You totally set me up. Don't deny it," he murmured playfully.
He looked up and frowned slightly. Laurel followed his gaze and spotted the beautiful red-headed assassin. She resisted the impulse to bare her teeth at her.
"It's my understanding that several James Bond movies took place in Monte Carlo. I suppose it's rather de rigueur for spies to make an appearance here," she commented, idly inclining her head towards Tony's new assistant, who was glancing alertly around the room as though searching for something.
Romanoff was probably looking for her employer, but she would never spot him under her Notice-Me-Not Charm, Laurel thought smugly, absently fingering the delicate wire of her bracelet.
Tony grimaced at the reminder that he had another Obadiah working for him. Grasping hold of her earlier comment, he inquired, "I almost missed it, but you just made a pop culture reference! You know about James Bond?"
The witch glanced at him and grinned, the low light from the chandeliers causing an interesting play of shadows over her eyes and the hollows of her cheeks. "Wikipedia," she shrugged. "I've been trying to educate myself on arts and entertainment to blend in better."
Stark nearly sputtered with horror. "You're going about this all wrong! Pop culture has to be experienced firsthand. You'll never understand the appeal of the James Bond movies unless you see them for yourself."
When she looked at him doubtfully, he declared, "I think you're going to need a tutor. He'll have to have impeccable taste—that's a given. So someone cultured, with a wide knowledge base, dazzling sense of humor, breadth of experience…" Tony trailed off, his playful offer filling the space between them.
"So you think I need to find an elderly man?" she asked in mock-confusion, eyes dancing with delight at his sudden pique.
His dark eyebrows rose comically. "Elderly?" he yelped. "No! Someone in the prime of his life," he corrected.
"Like that bloke over there?" she inquired disingenuously, pointing out a random man in the crowd.
"You're a wicked little creature, aren't you? I really should have gone ahead with my plan to have an exorcist purify the lab," he retorted with a sly look.
"Oi!" she grinned.
"Would you like a drink?" Tony asked.
Now that she was so close, he could not stop staring. Always a tactile person, Tony struggled to reign in his desire to reach out and feel how soft her hair was, to see if her cheekbones were as sharp as they looked, or whether he would be able to feel the prickle of her magic if he stroked her skin. He needed a drink to hold this very minute or he wouldn't be held accountable for his twitching fingers.
"Under the circumstances, a martini might be apropos," she proposed.
"Oh, good call. Now I guess we just lean back, sip our drinks, and try to look mysterious. Maybe people will think we're spies," Tony suggested, looking absurdly pleased at the idea.
Laurel snorted and considered his words, "Well, I suppose you could be a flamboyant agent like James Bond or Mata Hari. You're too noticeable to be a ninja spy like Romanoff."
"Hey! I could so be a ninja spy," Tony objected.
"No way," she grinned. "You'd be wasted in that line of work. Think of all the stillborn quips. Your mouth is one of your best assets, so you might as well play to your strengths. I bet you can talk your way out of—and into—anything."
"Well, some of us have to be glib because we don't have huge, unreasonably, preposterously, ludicrously green eyes to fall back on," he responded.
Laurel carefully set down her glass, afraid the tremor in her hand would reveal her momentary loss of sangfroid. A few moments passed in silence, while they indolently sipped their drinks and gazed out at the crowd.
"This party is quite tedious," she remarked finally, glancing around the room.
"You're telling me," the inventor returned fervently.
With a speculative glance at the inventor, who was half-heartedly using a toothpick to spearfish for his olive, Laurel asked, "Shall we liven it up a bit?"
"Please tell me you're saying what I think you're saying," Tony responded, eyes lighting up with mirth.
"If you're wondering whether I'm talking about pranking people with magic, then yes, I am," she smirked, lightly tapping her glass to his in a mock-toast.
"'Magical...pranking'," he murmured in an awed tone.
"Is there anyone here that you particularly dislike? Let's start there," she urged.
The first time she had observed him, Laurel had suspected that Tony would make a most excellent pranking partner. It was finally time to put that theory to the test. "Well, Justin Hammer of course," he submitted, racking his brains for anyone else at the party he couldn't abide.
"Oh yes, he's awful. We may have to come up with something special for him later, but there's no reason we can't start him out with an appetizer," she smirked.
"Should we move somewhere else? We might be a little obvious if we stay at the bar," he objected.
Laurel shot him a look. "Haven't you wondered why no one has come up to you since I sat down? We're under half a dozen privacy charms. Nobody will notice us, and to anyone nearby, our conversation will sound like it's about whatever topic bores them most," she explained, pleased at his incredulous expression.
"Wow….By the way, how do you detect that spell? I think that several of my board members may have had that cast on them permanently. They're always talking about things like team-building, core competency and empowerment," he gave an exaggerated shudder.
She snickered and said, "You might be right about moving though. We'd have a nice vantage point to watch the chaos at one of those tables on the second level—maybe the one by the thick column."
He stared at her with a mixture of amusement and rapt admiration. "'Chaos', she says," he echoed reverently, and added laughingly, "'Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night'."
With a slow grin, she objected, "And now you mock me! But if chaos is what you want, you'll have it in spades. I just need to do a little drinking-thinking first."
Offering her his arm to walk up the stairs, Tony teased, "I think you may just wind up being a bad influence on me, Bandit."
Laurel laughed again and nudged him gently with her shoulder. Once they sat down at the table that was slightly hidden in shadow, but had a panoramic view of the party below, she asked, "Where's Spock? Did you leave him at home with Jarvis?"
"No. He'd never stand for that. He's in my hotel room watching The Mask. If that finishes early and he gets bored, I left the third audio book in the Wizard of Oz series cued up for him. He's a total fanboy for Dorothy's dog. Was really disappointed when I explained that he and Toto weren't the same breed.
"I finally convinced him to wear a collar, and he agreed once I explained the GPS tracker to him and let him pick out the design. He can be reasonable, unlike some…" he insinuated, his eyes glinting in mock-chastisement.
His tracking device in the bracelet had been an abject failure. Whenever he tried to check her position, the readings were completely blank, like she wasn't even on earth. He didn't know that it was because she kept it in her bottomless bag, which was really an extra-dimensional pocket. Sometimes she took it out and admired it at night, but she rarely wore it, thinking it too fine for everyday use.
"For the last time, Tony, I will not let you tag me like a misbehaving animal with a tendency to stray from its preserve," the witch demurred.
"Do you forbid it?" he asked cagily, stroking the marble inlay of the guardrail with his perpetually active, creator's hands.
"Oh, of course not. Ultimatums are for enemies. You're welcome to give it the old college try, but don't be embarrassed if you waste a fortune in tech and time," she taunted, knowing that he probably would.
As they polished off the rest of their martinis, Tony said with a wistful sigh, "Too bad there's no such thing as magical liquor."
Laurel's eyes lit up.