A/N Okay, so I know this is late but like I said before, until yesterday morning, I had forgotten that yesterday was Valentine's Day. I really wanted to do a Valentine's Day chapter and late last night I got inspired and wrote this. So I guess it's better late than never, right? :)
Today is Valentine's Day?
"Oh crap!" Tony said, sitting bolt upright. "Oh, crap! Oh, crap! Oh, crap!"
A low grumble emanating from the archer beside him, met Tony's ears.
"Hey! Hawkbutt! Wake up!" Tony said urgently.
"Go 'way, Tony," Clint said, trying to slip back into blessed unconsciousness.
"Clint! You have got to get up! We are dead! And I don't mean dead like other times. This time it's for real! This is, by far, the worst thing we have ever done!" Tony said, his voice laced with panic.
Tony's use of Clint's first name instead of one of the stupid and obnoxious nicknames, the billionaire's belief that whatever they had done was worse than anything else, and the panic in Tony Stark's, Tony-nothing-ever-bothers-me-Stark's, voice drove all thoughts of sleep from Clint's mind. Any one of those things would have caught Clint's attention but all three combined, had Clint opening his eyes and quickly siting up in concern.
"What? What's wrong?" Clint asked.
He glanced around the room almost expecting to see some kind of threat but it was Tony's grave words that caused an icy, petrifying fear to run through the archer.
"Today is Valentine's Day."
"Oh, no! Please no!" Clint said, hoping, praying that Tony was somehow wrong, lying, or pulling a sick, twisted joke, but one look at the billionaire's face told him otherwise.
"We forgot," Tony stated.
"Nat and Pepper will kill us. For real this time," Clint added.
"And they'll be totally justified. We forgot Valentine's Day," Tony said with a moan as he placed his hands over his face and flopped back onto the floor.
"Sir, I thought you would like to know that Ms. Potts and Agent Romanoff are approaching the lab," Jarvis suddenly informed.
"So we die at dawn," Tony said.
"It's nine o'clock, Tony," Clint said unhelpfully.
"Your point?" Tony asked.
Clint just let it go. He didn't want his last words to Tony to be an argument. He wanted his last moments to be semi happy, or at least not sad or angry, ones.
With unspoken agreement they both stood to face the music. They didn't have to wait long as Pepper and Natasha entered the lab. When they saw the two men they smiled and moved over to them. Pepper wrapped her arms around Tony's neck and kissed him as Natasha did the same with Clint. Both men savored the last kiss they would ever receive on this Earth.
After a minute, the two women broke away and each held out a card to their boyfriends. Tony and Clint took the proffered cards and opened them, reading the valentines. Tony's was an Iron Man valentine which of course was perfect for him. Pepper really did know him well. Natasha had made an equally perfect choice, with a Hawkeye valentine for Clint.
"Thanks, Pep. I love it," Tony said, somehow successfully keeping the despair out of his voice.
"Me too. Thanks, Nat!" Clint agreed.
"That's just the card, you'll get your gift later," Pepper promised Tony with a smile.
"You too," Natasha told Clint.
Then the lab grew silent as Natasha and Pepper waited expectantly. After a couple of tense, or as the guys would call it, unbearable, minutes Pepper finally spoke up.
"Well? Don't you two have something for us?" she prompted.
Tony opened his mouth to just bite the bullet and admit they had forgotten when an idea flashed into his mind.
"Actually, Pep, it's not done yet. We actually came up with the idea for both of your valentines together and we have been working on it but we're not done yet. You actually interrupted us just now. I'm really sorry we don't have it done yet, Pep," Tony said putting some remorse into his tone a hanging his head a bit.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Clint sending him a look that was somewhere between awe and panic.
"You're making us something?" Pepper asked, sounding touched.
"Uh, yeah, we thought it was more thoughtful that way," Clint said, following Tony's lead.
He may have thought the billionaire was nuts for lying to them but at least it was buying them time.
"That is so sweet," Pepper said, giving Tony a hug.
"Not bad," Natasha said, giving Clint an approving smile.
For a brief moment both men breathed internal sighs of relief. Then Pepper spoke again.
"All right, we'll leave so you can finish," Pepper said excitedly.
Tony's and Clint's eyes widened just a bit but they kept their fear mostly hidden and smiled at the two women as they left the room. Once they were gone, Tony's and Clint's smiles fell and they looked at each other in terror.
"Tony, what do we do? They left us so we can finish their valentines. What valentines!" Clint shouted. "We have nothing and when they find out that not only did we forget Valentine's Day but we lied to them about it too? They won't just kill us, they will torture us slowly and painfully before killing us."
"Relax. We'll come up with something," Tony said. "We have too."
They thought for several minutes, becoming more worried and on edge as the time ticked by before suddenly, Tony had an epiphany.
"I've got it!" he cried.
He proceeded to explain his idea to Clint whose eyes lit up and he looked at Tony in relief.
"Tony, that's perfect! They will love it and our hides will be saved!"
"Stick with me, oh-ye-of-little-faith," Tony said as he grabbed a phone and made a call.
Clint's happy relief soon faded as he listened to Tony's side of the phone conversation.
"What? Two days! No, I need it today...What do you mean you can't?... Look money is no object... What do you mean it's not possible?... Yeah. Thanks for nothing," Tony said irritably and hung up the phone.
"What's wrong?" Clint asked, not sure if he really wanted to know.
"They can't get it here for two days."
"What! We'll be dead by then!" Clint cried.
"I know, but Valentine's Day has stretched them thin and they just can't do it," Tony said.
"Now what are we supposed to do?" Clint groaned.
Tony thought for a moment.
"We may be able to salvage it. I have an idea but we can't carry it out until it gets dark. So we'll have to tell the girls that they have to wait until tomorrow," Tony said.
"Yeah, that'll end well," Clint said sarcastically.
"Look, either we feed them a story and make them wait until tomorrow or we tell them the truth," Tony said.
"So we're dead if we do, dead if we don't," Clint said.
"I'll take that as 'you're in,'" Tony said. "So here's what we have to do."
After hearing Tony's plan, Clint was sure that the billionaire's plan was going to fail epically and was going to get them in ever so much trouble, but unfortunately Clint didn't have any better ideas and they really had no other choice.
"All right," the archer said resignedly. "But what do we tell the girls?"
"Leave that to me. I have an idea," Tony said before leaving the lab.
He entered the living room where Natasha and Pepper were watching TV. He waited until they saw him before speaking.
"Hey, Natasha, Pep, I'm afraid I have some bad news. You're going to have to wait until tomorrow for your valentines."
Natasha narrowed her eyes at the billionaire.
"If I didn't know better I'd think you two had forgotten about Valentine's Day and are now trying to cover it up."
Tony almost choked as Natasha hit the nail on the head, but he held it together and put on a convincing smile.
"Not even close!" he scoffed. "We were almost done when Dummy got in my way and tripped me. I fell and accidentally destroyed all of our work. There's no way to salvage what we have. We have to get all new materials and no matter how hard I tried they won't be delivered until tomorrow. Apparently, Valentine's Day has everybody backed up," Tony said, praying desperately that they would buy it.
The two women scrutinized him for a long moment and it was all Tony could do to keep from squirming and fidgeting under the harsh gazes. Finally after what seemed like an eternity to the uncomfortable billionaire, the two women relaxed and accepted his explanation and apology for making them wait.
Tony was quick to escape back to the lab after that. He walked in and found Clint nervously pacing.
"Do we need to run? Or hide? Or update our wills?" the archer asked.
"No, they bought it. We're clear. Now all we have to do is wait for it to get dark then Operation: Valentine aka Operation: Save our butts, begins."
)()()(
The Next Morning
"All right, you ready?" Tony asked as he and Clint positioned Natasha and Pepper in front of their valentines.
The two men were standing behind their girlfriends with their hands covering the girls' eyes.
"Yes," Pepper said excitedly.
On the count of three, Clint and Tony removed their hands and Pepper and Natasha opened their eyes to see two life-sized life-like statues of themselves made completely out of red roses.
"Oh, Tony," Pepper breathed. "It's beautiful."
She stepped forward and gently caressed one of the flowers that made up her flowing hair. Not only did the statues look like them but they were posed perfectly. Pepper's likeness looked strong and beautiful and Natasha's looked stunning and dangerous.
"What do you think, Nat?" Clint asked, holding his breath.
Natasha studied the statue a minute before finally turning and giving Clint a small smile.
"You did good. Even though I still think you forgot. I guess you mostly made up for it."
Clint almost passed out from relief. Although, Pepper may or may not have actually killed Tony, Clint's girlfriend was more than capable and under the right circumstances, more than willing to kill him. And Clint was pretty sure that forgetting Valentine's Day would fall into the 'right circumstances.' But it had worked out and he was off the hook. Thank goodness.
Tony, likewise, was feeling the relief as Pepper threw her arms around him and kissed him.
"I love it," she said once she pulled away.
Natasha even gave Clint a quick kiss and for a few minutes everything was perfect, until Jarvis, the AI-that-was-so-getting-dismantled-after-this, turned on the news.
And in other news, authorities are still trying to figure out who managed to sneak into the warehouse housing the flowers for the three day Valentine's Day Flower Show in Times Square, and steal five hundred red roses.
Natasha and Pepper slowly turned to look at Tony and Clint.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Tony said hastily before he and Clint started slowly backing out of the room.
"I hate you Tony," Clint mumbled.
"Hey, look on the bright side," Tony mumbled back.
"What bright side?" Clint asked incredulously.
"At least, this time, they don't have an embarrassing video of us to upload to Youtube."
The look Clint gave him, made Tony suddenly feel very alone and very very threatened.
Let me know if you liked it!
Hopefully, having two chapters in two days will make it up to you guys for missing Valentine's Day. :P
Oh, and if you liked this, then you might want to go over to MarvelAndDCWriter's page and check out his story It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time – The Second Series. He came up with his own Valentine's Day chapter that he actually posted on Valentine's Day. I thought it turned out pretty funny. Check it out, you might like it. :)