The characters, they've gone rogue again... at least my fierce beta Nova managed to round up the grammar, as it was pretty much escaping along with them. (Whatever did I do without you, Demon?)

I own nothing, people. Just the fluff. (But that's the best bit!)

TapTap

Natasha lounged attractively at the bar, sitting with Steve on her one side, Claire on the other. Captain America had, of course, wanted Claire in the middle, protected, but he had been vetoed by the two women.

They were at a high society charity event, military tactics weren't strictly necessary. Usually, anyway. Who truly knew, when Tony was around and about.

The owner of Stark Industries had disappeared with a pretty redhead model fairly early on, but had later reappeared without her. Apparently she could not hold his interest for longer than 45 minutes or so, nevermind all night.

As if to prove just how much chaos he could cause at any given moment, Tony chose the crowded lobby to start a frankly ludicrously loud argument with his closest competitor, the owner of Wayne Incorporated.

Starks's loud, aggressive, "What the hell do you think you're playing at?!"" contrasted almost absurdly sharply with Wayne's measured response. The decade or so older businessman was showing all of the signs of somebody looking for a fight, while his younger competitor stood firm, calm, unmoved.

"Well, I am sure you know, and that's why you're angry." Wayne might not be the master of snark that Stark was, but he was not an innocent at that game. Even though, quite likely, he was trying to calm his oftentimes friend down instead of provoking him further.

"I do. Do you?! I know the game, Wayne! I practically invented the bloody rulebook! With her of all people? What the hell are you playing at?!" This was about the time when everybody eagerly crowding around to listen jointly concluded that this was about some mutual conquest. It was puzzling, however - Bruce Wayne didn't usually play the field, and Tony Stark didn't much care for repeats or posessiveness. The two had never clashed about lovers before.

A moment later this was all promptly forgotten, as Stark without further ado took a swing at Wayne. There were only a few people in the room - mostly superheroes and their sparring partners - who caught on to how easy Wayne blocked. Effortlessly, almost casually, even though he made it look considerably more clumsy, simply by an awkward stance he didn't bother to shift. He didn't need the advantage, anyway.

Somebody screamed, but then Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanow crowded in on their pissed teammate, calming him the hell down or maybe just restraining him, the trio moving out of the public eye not subtly, but swiftly.

In the commotion, not many noticed how it was Stark's date who spoke a few soft words to Wayne, or how he gently kissed her cheek and whispered something in her ear.

No doubt if they had been able to know any of it, or all, they would have been terribly disappointed to learn that he was merely giving her a message for Pepper. His eyes, of course, were speaking about very different things, but there were no photos and no witnesses, so clearly it didn't really happen.

Bruce Wayne was sitting by himself in his office, watching the news report. It was mid-morning, the day after what the media had termed as "The Great Row", and Edward Fox and Virginia Potts were hard at work doing damage control.

Not so much because Stark Industries or Wayne Incorporated were suffering, they weren't. Their stocks were stable, even rising a little bit, pretty much the same as any normal day. The problem was that they were two such economic superpowers, and the mere possibility of their relative cooperation and peace ceasing was enough to send shockwaves of distress through the entire market. Small businesses could go under just from the immediate fallout of the rumours.

In response, Virginia and Edward had swiftly sent out matching messages to the press, stating that their forthcoming negotiations were still going along smoothly. And they were pushing the contracts forward, so that they could be signed and the deal confirmed.

Bruce Wayne sighed. He trusted Edward and his Stark equivalent had it well in hand, and he wasn't actually angry at Stark. He was a little worried about the other implications however. He didn't want to distress Miss Thomas for anything. His mind had always worked at an overly quick speed, and just in meeting her, hearing her laugh, he could see it. Could see what it would be like, the him and her.

He didn't expect her to understand as much, and he knew he needed to thread warily, but it was hard when that notorious visionary brain of his had jumped several crucial steps ahead.

He called out the, "Enter," rather absentmindedly as there was a knock on his door, not surprised to see his secretary being the one to answer the habitual invitation. He wasn't very taken aback to see her carrying a huge bouquet of white roses, either. The flower of forgiveness. Half reconciliatory gesture, by Pepper he assumed, and half media-show. SI sent flowers, WI accepted them gracefully. Nothing to see here, everyone, nothing is wrong. Just a drunk billionaire, already forgotten about at the top, don't worry about it.

He sighed again, trying to cheer himself up. The melancholy he felt this morning wouldn't help anything.

Finally, he was surprised when Claire Thomas shyly entered after his secretary, coming closer to his massive desk - overlooking the Gotham skyline much like Tony's did with New York's - as the other woman put the roses on the edge and went back out.

"Sit, please," he found his voice, sitting up straigher. Waiting a heartbeat, he smiled. "Pepper has got things well under control, I see."

She smiled. "You and Mr Fox run your company together, do you not? Well, she's on her own. She has to be good... and I'd think she figured sending me with dad's apology flowers was a good bet."

"A good guess," he agreed, finding himself smiling quite by accident. "Look..." He took a deep breath and allowed his face to go serious. "I think - especially after last night - there's a few things we should probably say to each other. Firstly, of course, that Tony is quite wrong. Yes, I was flirting with you. Yes, I was being blatant about it. Twice. Hey, thrice if you count the bar - but I'm not trying to make a conquest here. He's the competent playboy. I was never good at that type of game. And I'm not playing one now."

Claire listened to him silently, patiently, then she cocked her head to the side in thought. She was quiet for probably at least a minute, but he let the silence stand. She would speak when she was ready to, he had no doubt.

"Look," her voice was soft. "I've met you three times. I might not know what you're playing at, but I know that there's more to everything here than you're saying. Happy used to be a boxer, you know, and he taught Tony a few things. Everybody in the Avengers also taught him a few things. He wasn't just a drunk billionaire who took a swing at another possibly also drunk billionaire." She looked straight into his eyes, and he could see how she was serious, and had thought things through properly at that.

"He knows how to connect a punch, and so do you. I spar with Steve and Bucky; I've used those moves. I don't know why you're quite so good at hiding it, and maybe one day I'll have the right to ask, but it sure as hell isn't today. But you chose to de-escalate, not fight, and I can appreciate that at least. As for the rest... "

She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. "Thank you for telling me. That's important. But you're just going to have to prove all of that, the hard way, before it... actually means anything. If I'm even..." she sighed, "you're charming, and you look good in a suit, and I bet that you're hot without one on. But you're older than me, and part of a world that I'm only just entering. And I know your type."

Bruce was about to object, to explain how he wasn't the mindless party prince she thought he would be, when her next words surprised him.

"I've seen it before. You're a genius too. And I bet you see things in your head I cannot even imagine yet, if you're truly sincere. I can get that. Respect it, too. Help you cope, if I can. But you're gonna have to wait for me to catch up, both for my sake, and for yours. I don't know you." She rose, but there was nothing dismissive in her manner. It wasn't a goodbye, this was more like see you later.

"And for all that you can no doubt predict, same as Bruce or Tony would, you don't know me very well, either." She walked silently towards the door, and once she reached it, she turned to look over her shoulder, adding, "You don't know, I might only want to use you for sex."

Turning back with a snap of her long, light hair, she opened the door and exited without a single sound. He couldn't help but laugh.

With any other woman he'd roll his eyes at that line, but this was the spirit-daughter of Tony Stark. He really did need to be careful not to get his heart broken.