A Study in Crimson and Viridian
Rating: PG-13 (ratings vary per chapter)
Characters/Pairings: FrostIron (Loki/Tony), canongirl!Tony Stark(i.e. Natasha Stark), and the rest of the Avengers movie cast.
Warnings: Movie spoilers, obviously, and in a major way. Spoilers for various events throughout the comic-verse, including Civil War, Dark Reign, and Siege.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Well, except Earth-199990, but that's pretty useless to me without all these great Marvel characters.
Notes: Kaboom.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
You Feel Entitled To Self Control
Natasha has learned by now that what she wants to believe isn't always what is right. It should seem fairly obvious to everyone, but Natasha has always lived under the assumption that she is always right—and for the most part, this is true because she has Stark instincts and intuition and a brilliant mind that fills in all the gaps between. Up until recently, she can count on one hand the number of times she's been wrong. The real kind of wrong—the wrong that led to bad things and bad decisions and people getting hurt (or Natasha getting hurt). She's fucked up plenty of times before and after these incidents, but it's not the same to fuck up because you just don't give a damn and you want to watch everything around you burn—and fucking up because being a genius doesn't compensate for inexperience and then shit happens to good people and Natasha is left watching others' lives crumble around them while she remains safely within her wealthy cocoon.
These last couple of days Natasha has had trouble trusting her instincts. It's put her on constant edge, leaving her wracked with a feeling that's not unlike falling twenty-thousand feet to the ground. She can barely mask her anxiety beneath the familiar layer of Stark bravado and it has her questioning whether she's in any position to be making decisions, yet completely unwilling to allow anyone else to step forward and take her mantel as lead—because she is always lead and she refuses to allow anyone else to assume the position because she is not weak and a few mistakes here and there don't mean she's not prepared to take on Loki and his alien army.
But.
50% of her wants to fall into the familiar pattern of taking charge and making calls, showing off along the way because that's what she does. 40% wants to just say fuck working with other people—since when has she needed anyone to get the job done? (Rhodey exluded). The other 10% is a mess that thinks admitting she's totally lost for ideas is a good idea, or better yet, letting someone else take the reins (and didn't that just burn?). There's that final little fragment of that 10% that she's pointedly ignoring because it's telling her to believe in something that she physically cannot bring herself to accept.
And that is to trust Loki, because Goddamn him, he's probably telling the truth, for once.
Natasha doesn't need it spelled out for her. Despite the God's reticence, it's clear that Loki is not only not working alone, but he's working with someone—if not for, given the visible tension in his shoulders and around his eyes when he'd spoken of He Who Would Make Him 'Long For Something So Sweet As Pain'. The words seem to have only now taken root within her, chilling her under her skin and wrapping like a vice around her heart. This is fear—she knows it well. It's the sort of fear she remembers from those blistering nights in the caves when her life had been balanced precariously between a car battery and her genius. She'd found no victory when she'd escaped those caves; discovered only loss and a sense of self-loathing that ran deeper than anything she'd ever harbored for her father and strong enough that she suspected it had been there, festering, long before she'd ever been alerted to it.
Walking back to the Lab, she feels that same fear now and she has to stop, catching herself with a hand to the wall to recover her breath. It's like a blow to the chest and her lungs are completely unwilling to accept the air she's swallowing like her life is depends on it. The corridor back to the Wishbone Lab is empty. She's grateful for the heavy rumble of the Helicarrier's engines that keep her world from falling into total silence.
For a beat, she feels a pang of longing for the Tower—remembers how Pepper and Olson would keep the music blaring in her workshop, and then leave on every television in every room Natasha was prone to visiting. She takes another breath and the longing is gone—pushed away somewhere she won't have to analyze.
She gathers her composure, reminding herself that she needs to return to Banner and continue their work. It has already been too long—it took only five minutes to get to the restrooms from the Lab and it's been twenty since she ran out of there. Damn Asgardians and their impeccable timing.
Dragging a hand over her face that does nothing to clear her mind, she starts walking—manages to focus for several seconds on just the repetitive motions of setting one foot in front of the other, before her mind returns to Loki and the Cube and the notion of a damn army heading their way. She wants to believe that Loki isn't the bad guy in all this—he isn't the puppet master pulling the strings—but even without all the cynicism she's accumulated, she knows Loki is far from innocent. Whether or not he's the one running the show, she can see it in every action and hear it in every word—this was the path Loki chose.
When she reaches the Lab, Banner looks up at her over the rim of his glasses, an amused smile tugging on his lips.
In the time it takes her to reach his station, she's managed to bottle away all her conflicting emotions and greets him with a smirk and a roll of the eyes. "I ran into Goldilocks on the way."
Banner parts his lips in an 'ah' and then returns to his work, just as dismissive and nonintrusive as ever. Natasha frowns, focusing on the tacit goal of getting Banner to loosen up so she doesn't have to think about Loki and the problems he's causing—and also, she just wants to see Banner smile a little like he actually means it.
Not for a second does it occur to her to mention her encounter with Loki (encounters now, isn't it?). Gradually, it's like Loki is becoming her dirty little secret and it's the reckless part of her (the part that dives out of airplanes and thinks it's a good idea to fly around in a suit of armor that's reliant on the energy consumed by her only life support) that thrills at the knowledge that Loki's role is so much more than anyone else realizes but only she knows just how cunning his scheme truly is. She thinks what's kept her functioning these past two days is the small surge of power she gets from knowing something S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't—knowing she's one step ahead of everyone else. Even if she's been five steps behind Loki this entire time. It's a small consolation and she'll take it.
"Your decryption is nearly done." Banner says, nodding to the transparent monitor between them since his hands are busy typing into his keyboard.
She smiles, pleased, and heads for the station Banner had been using to study the scepter. It's been spared the relative destruction they've wrought with their work and is bare save for a monitor, the scepter, and a collection of Natasha's empty soda cans and water bottles. She grabs the monitor hanging over Banner's area and swings it to her end, seating herself on the station to watch as the decryption tackles the last firewall. Banner leaves his work to stand over her shoulder, watching the screen with interest.
"So—I'm guessing you planted the bug on the Director's station?"
Natasha cocks a brow and glances over her shoulder at Banner, surprised he's initiating a conversation that doesn't have anything to do with the work. She merely smirks, widening her eyes playfully, before returning to the monitor.
"If you promise to visit the Tower, I'd be more than happy to show you all my toys," she says invitingly.
Banner sniffs behind her—his quiet little laugh, she's come to recognize—and doesn't say anything else for a while. Natasha glances over her shoulder again, allowing her eyes to linger while Banner pretends he doesn't know she's staring, keeping his eyes purposefully trained on the monitor. He's fascinating, she decides, because knowing what she does about the Hulk and the experiments Banner had been conducting that led to the Hulk's creation (which, admittedly, isn't much) Banner is nothing like what she'd anticipated. She thought, perhaps, she could expect to find a broken man, or a desperate man who was barely clinging to sanity—something fun like that. The Hulk was a calamity to those who encountered him but that was only when he broke out. Banner lived with the Hulk—his life was a cruel parody of Jekyll and Hyde.
But Banner is none of that. He is calm—with an edge that she doesn't know if it means he's just that close to Hulking out, or if it's just the result of the stress of sharing his body with another. Natasha wants to study him—understand him. Banner and the Hulk.
He doesn't say anything, but his brows hitch up for a second as he indicates to the screen with a jut of his chin.
She turns around to see the screen flashing: Access Granted in bold red just as the East facing doors slide open and Fury enters with a glower.
"What are you doing, Ms. Stark?"
She stares him down with a look of total innocence. "Uh—kind've been wondering the same about you."
Fury's glower deepens. "You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."
"We are," Banner replies before she has the opportunity to reply. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within a half a mile."
"And you'll get your Cube back. No muss. No fuss." Natasha bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning too widely but can't help a tingle of satisfaction to have Banner on her side. It feels a little like a long awaited victory against Fury. After all, if the man could have the Super Scout wrapped around his trigger finger, then Natasha was more than willing to take Banner with his incredible mind and breathtaking anger-management issues.
A bleep and a flicker out of the corner of her eyes brings her attention back to the screen in front of her and she straightens a little.
"What is Phase Two?" she asks.
Fury's hands are on his hips and if looks could maim (because killing her would never be enough)—
A heavy clang resonates throughout the Lab. Natasha blinks and looks through the monitor to see Rogers returned to the same station as before, handling an impressively large weapon.
"Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons." Roger's eyes meet hers and for once all that self-righteous anger is not directed towards her—probably. "Sorry. Computer was moving a little slow for me."
Natasha will admit she's impressed, and probably stares for a little longer than necessary but—this is just too perfect. Anticipating an argument that she has every intention of being a part of, she hops off the station. At the same time, the screen loads another window and while she was only half-listening to the shit spewing from the Director's mouth, everything she's reading seems to contradict what Fury is saying.
"I'm sorry, Nick," She calls out, drawing both Fury and Rogers' attention "What were you lying?"
The screen is displaying blueprints for a next-gen bomb. Natasha sobers when she recognizes what it is—and where she'd last seen something like this.
"I was wrong, Director," Rogers says quietly. "The world hasn't changed a bit."
She's never seen Fury look cornered, but his eye darts between three of them and she can almost see the deceptive cogs turning in his head, searching for a suitable lie—something applicable to the three of them. She knows Fury—knows how desperate he must be now to appeal to both Rogers and Banner (Natasha be damned) because they are his golden eggs and even if Rogers hasn't quite realized that, she knows Banner is too smart to fall for that sort of crap. It still pisses her off. She feels defensive and possessive because even if she can't stand the guy, Rogers is practically Stark property by virtue of the serum he had running through his veins. And, in a small way, that means that Banner is her concern as well, because that was her research and her tech infecting his system, even if the accident that had led to the Hulk had nothing to do with her.
Sometimes, she thinks Fury knows this—knows how much it grates her to watch him assume control over what is rightfully hers—and Fury is the little like stern father she never had, stealing away her possessions in an effort to teach her some sort of life lesson (probably that Natasha can't actually own people and she has no real claim to either Banner or Rogers, but that's also Pepper's voice of reason and Natasha knows and feels they are wrong. She can. It's her money. Her tech. She can.)
Fury still hasn't said anything when Romanoff enters with Thor.
"Did you know about this?" Banner pins her with an almost dangerous look.
Nobody threatens Romanoff, however. Her expression is stony; professional. "You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"
Banner huffs a short laugh that's all vitriol and no humor. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."
Romanoff starts towards Banner—then halts when Banner moves back. "Loki is manipulating you."
Only then does Thor seem to take any interest in the situation. His heavy gaze falls on Romanoff's back.
"And you've been doing what, exactly?" Banner scoffs.
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." Banner steps towards the screen that's now displaying the full plans for a bomb. "I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
Every line of Fury's body is terse with anger. He does not like to be questioned; even when he knows he's in the wrong. He is the sort of man who would sooner cut off his own arm than admit defeat. What disgusts her most is that she can read it on his face—the arrogance of a man who truly believes he knows what is best and cares not for the repercussions of his actions.
Without looking away from Banner, Fury raises an arm and points.
At Thor.
"Because of him."
Thor looks just as startled as either Banner or Rogers. "Me?"
It is only Natasha and Romanoff who are completely unsurprised (Romanoff because of her unwavering loyalties to Fury, and Natasha because it's just the sort of dick move Fury would pull—excusing his actions by placing the blame on a convenient third party with the ever-classic 'he did it!'). She tucks her hands into her jeans and listens, observing everyone carefully.
Fury focuses on Banner. "Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, be we are hopelessly—hilariously—out-gunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor says, his incredulity staying his wrath, though Natasha can see it growing in the flexing of his biceps and the stiff set of his shoulders.
Fury turns to face Rogers as if to ensure he still had the Captain on his side, but everything seemed to be unraveling around the Director. Rogers was regarding Fury with open eyes, a pinch between his brow and a curl of distrust on his lips. Behind Fury, Romanoff is edging closer to Banner, who is eyeing her wearily and backing up to maintain distance.
"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury says to Thor. "And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched. They can't be controlled."
Controlled.
That's the keyword that has Rogers straightening with indignation.
"Like you controlled the Cube?"
"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies," Thor rumbles as he stalks closer to Fury, looking every bit the wrathful God. To his credit, Fury stands his ground unflinchingly. "It is the signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."
"A 'higher form'?" Rogers asks, alarmed.
"You forced our hand," Fury all but shrugs. "We had to come up with some—"
"A nuclear deterrent." Natasha steps forward as the blueprints of the bomb flash in her mind. "Because that always calms everything right down."
Fury swivels to face her like he was just waiting for her to speak.
He sneers, "Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"
Rogers steps forward. "I'm sure if she still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep—"
"Wait—wait! Hold on!" She turns incredulously to Rogers, rattled to her core at the audacity of the man. "How is this now about me?"
Natasha almost doesn't recognize his expression when he retorts with, "I'm sorry, isn't everything?"
And then she recognizes the tone as the cutting sort of brutal sarcasm she reserves for him.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor mutters reproachfully.
"Excuse me," Fury jerks back around to face the God. "Did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"
"You understand that this isn't a game, don't you?" Rogers says, staring her down like he's still got a lot to say.
"I'm sorry—" Natasha pushes off the station she's been leaning against, drawing her hands from her pockets. She meets Rogers glare with a sneer. "What is it about me that bothers you so much? I'm curious."
"Maybe it's your total disregard for everything we do." Rogers spits back.
"'We'? You don't even belong in this timeline, hero."
The room falls into chaos, with Fury and Romanoff trying to deflect accusations from Thor and Banner. Natasha hears Banner scoff—hears him say, "And Captain America is on the threat watchlist?"
"We all are." Romanoff replies.
Natasha smirks nastily and turns back to Rogers. "You're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?"
Rogers actually looks like he wants to using physical force against her, and that's almost enough to get her to retreat a step when he closes the distance between them, assaulting her space. "I swear to God, Stark, one more wisecrack—"
Natasha holds up her hands and looks around at the rest of the room, eyes wide, "Threatening! I feel threatened!" Something dark twists smugly in her belly at the look of utter revulsion Rogers throws at her. Fucking good.
"You're unbelievable," Rogers mutters with such antipathy he might as well be cursing her out.
She smiles facetiously, "It's a family trait."
"No," Rogers huffs a humorless laugh, shaking his head. "No. You are nothing like your father. You're not even—"
"'Not even' what?" She says challengingly, eyes narrowing.
"You two!" Fury barks, reminding her that they are not alone—there is a room full of people watching her and Rogers, preparing for bloodshed. "Enough. We don't have time for this."
"You cannot even governor your own warriors. How do you hope to prevail against Loki? With the Tesseract at his disposal, my brother is no match for any mortal." Thor spits at Fury, not letting up on the Director. "You speak of control, yet you court chaos."
"It's his M.O., isn't it?" Banner says, and when Natasha looks over her shoulder at him (the inflection of his tone catching her attention) she doesn't recognize the expression. "I mean, what are we? A team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're—we're a time bomb."
"You need to step away," Fury warns Banner.
Something immediate and defensive sparks in her chest. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" She's actually not thinking when she throws her arm out and her hand finds Rogers' shoulder.
Her hand is slapped away so roughly her body jerks with the force of Rogers' enhanced strength. "You know damn well why! Back off!"
She doesn't know where this anger is coming from. It explodes within her, smothering the mantic veneer she lives by. She feels her expression go slack and her tone go cold just as everybody else goes silent with Rogers' burst.
"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," she murmurs.
"Yeah," Rogers scoffs, stepping around her. She feels his eyes sizing her up but doesn't look at him—can't look at him. "You and your big, fancy suit of armor. Take that off—what are you?"
"Genius, billionaire, polyamorist, philanthropist," Natasha intones, responding quickly as always. She drags her eyes to a point just over his shoulder.
"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you." Rogers all but sneers. She arches a brow with feigned nonchalance and sees his nostrils flare angrily. "I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the one to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire and let the other guys crawl over you."
Natasha has to look away for a second—swallow a steadying breath—because fuck him. Fuck. Him. "I think I would just cut the wire."
Rogers draws back, incredulity and disgust written clear and visible for her to see when she meets his eyes. "Always a way out." He smiles and it lacks any warmth—almost condescending. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."
"A hero? Like you?" she scoffs, and hates so much in this moment that it hurts. "You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers." It's the first time she's said his name in a long time and she sees something flicker in his eyes in response. "Everything special about you came out of a bottle."
She sees it again—for a second time. Sees her words find that same chink in the man's otherwise impenetrable armor. Something shifts in his face; a ripple in the façade. Her face is slack, stripped of emotion. She feels the muscles along her jaw clenching and unclenching—feels only the hot rage swelling within her core and the desire to hurt just as she's been hurt.
The tension in the Lab is so thick Natasha can barely breathe. Her vision is swimming, chest constricting—and it's almost like her body is malfunctioning, trying to shut down because it just can't cope with what she's feeling right now and yet, at the same time, she feels so alive. It's like waking up to a clear mind and open eyes—every single negative feeling that has festered within her since she was a child is validated in this moment. She sees her father in his study, the few times he was home, locked away with his maps and his notebook, a bottle of scotch in his lap and a constant loop of Captain America's bail bonds routine playing on the projector. Howard had always been a cold man—calculating and always ahead of everyone else by miles—but Natasha had seen him weak. Had seen the misery in his face as he watched the old footage—and that misery had been more regard than he had ever shown her or her mother.
Natasha had been Howard's greatest creation, but Rogers had been the child he always wanted.
She glares at Rogers now and every cell in her body vibrates with a need for payback—she thinks: It was you. It was your fault! You took—
But no.
Even within her own mind, she can't bring herself to admit to the extent of damage Rogers' has wrought to her childhood. He was the monster in her closet; the boogieman under her bed—a leech, devouring all the warmth of her youth, until she was left empty and cold.
And he doesn't even know.
Doesn't know that Natasha is more familiar with his accomplishments and his legacy than she was of even her own. That it was Rogers of whom her father spoke so highly about, taking every opportunity to remind her and the world of what a hero he had been. A boy from Brooklyn—with a brave heart and a kind soul, who singlehandedly saved them all.
Amidst all the anger, there is something else that is burning her apart from within, and it's strange but she recognizes it—betrayal. Because maybe Rogers had been the hero America had needed, and maybe he had been the friend to her father that Howard never deserved—but he'd taken one look at her and had decided he knew who she was long before she'd even had the chance to show him. She wasn't Howard's girl and she wasn't Fury's fuck-up, she was Natasha fuckin' Stark and he hadn't even cared.
You don't know me, Rogers, she wants to say—spit it in his face and let him hear all the hurt and all the hate of three decades. But she won't. Nothing in this world has ever broken past her Stark façade—nothing she didn't already intend to show—and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of taking this away from her as well. Control was all she had left, at this point—and only just barely.
"Put on the suit," Rogers says suddenly. "Let's go a few rounds.
"You cannot be serious," Thor scoffs, incredulous. "You people are so petty. And tiny."
And just like that, the storm of emotions settles—it leaves her feeling numbed. She takes a step from Rogers, pressing a hand to her forehead while the others turn their attention on Banner. Rogers is distracted as well and it's enough to allow her to regain her composure.
At most, all she can summon for Rogers now is irritation—nowhere near the vivid fury she'd felt for him moments ago. She feels anxious, suddenly, and her stomach churns with unease. Something is up. She knows it and feels it but she can't figure it out. She doesn't do overabundance of emotions—and now it's fucking with her head and making it hard to focus.
"Agent Romanoff," Fury is saying "Would you escort Doctor Banner back to his—"
"To where? You rented my room."
"The cell was just—"
"In case you needed to kill me." Banner cuts him a pointed look, daring Fury to challenge him. "But you can't. I know. I tried."
Natasha tries to fixate herself on the situation and not the crushing hollow of a pit that's suddenly taken residence within her. Belatedly, she registers Banner's words and it's like a sucker punch to the gut.
"I tried."
Banner's eyes flick from one person to another. They settle on hers for a second longer. "I got low. I didn't see an end so I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spat it back out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good—until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay so calm?"
It isn't until now that she realizes that while Banner was retreating from Romanoff, he'd managed to back into his station.
No one risks looking away from Banner; Fury unclips his holster and rests his hand on the butt of his pistol.
"Doctor Banner," Rogers says, quiet and urgent. "Put down the scepter."
Banner blinks—looks down to stare at the scepter in his hand like he doesn't know how it got there.
A shrill beep cuts echoes through the Lab from the back of the room.
All the tension Natasha had managed to loosen from Banner has returned and as he sets down the scepter, he draws into himself and heads towards the back computer. "Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all."
"Located the Tesseract?" Thor asks.
"I can get their faster." Natasha says to no one in particular.
Rogers frowns at her. "Look, all of us—"
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it," Thor warns her.
Natasha is already turning to leave, eager to escape this group of people. Rogers catches her shoulder and jerks her back around.
"You're not going alone!"
"You gunna stop me?" She slaps his hand and once again, they're stepping into each other's space, staring one another down as if they were a pair of hounds.
Rogers smirks—and it's almost too like Howard's and Natasha really can't take that. "Put on the suit. Let's find out."
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Natasha snaps back.
"Put. On. The. Suit."
Distantly, she thinks maybe she hears Banner say something like 'oh my god'.
But it doesn't really matter, because in the next moment flames are erupting from the center of the room and she's hitting a back wall with the force of an explosion that rocks the entire carrier.
End Notes:
Still posting this weekend as usual, with a bonus chapter. So, two chapter this weekend and one today because today is the day Avengers I get my four-disc copy of Avengers. I've been making do with copies I've found online and I know many of you have had your copies for a while, but I'm still excited! I love you all. You guys are so incredibly supportive, from the small little comments urging me to continue to some really beautiful and thoughtful comments that having me grinning for the entire day. You are the lifeblood of this fic, I hope you know.
A lot of you guys are speculating about what's to come. It makes me smile because yes, I have been leaving many clues throughout the story. Not all of them are related in the way you might think, but I promise you I don't waste a word. Let's see who's been paying attention later on when we get to the good stuff. I don't leave a trail of breadcrumbs. I scatter them. Good luck. I believe in all of you. :D