We pop in with Tony and Natasha again - this time at a pivotal juncture for the Avengers, these 2 in particular.
Enjoy.
"Fri? You there?"
No response.
"Fri?" Tony tried again. Part of him knew it was fruitless. The shield had smashed right through the suit and the reactor, and it was beyond any hope of repair outside of his lab.
The sigh he let out was exhaustion, pain, frustration, and desolation all rolled into one. He'd flown to the base with every intention of trying to fix the rift between him and Rogers, at least enough to allow them to battle alongside each other against the imminent threat. But the video had blown a giant hole in those plans, and through that hole had rushed red hot anger as he stared at the man who had killed his parents.
And now, having split the rift even wider - probably beyond repair, he supposed - he lay on the floor of an abandoned Russian base, the wind howling as it whipped snow and ice through the halls, and freezing him to his core. The last vestiges of power in the suit had faded away as he watched them walk away, and without power the suit was useless and too cumbersome to move in. And without access to tools, he was stuck in it.
Left to die by a man the world had once believed to be the moral compass of America. Abandoned by the man his father had so staunchly believed in, and searched for so fervently after they lost him. Betrayed by the man he'd called his friend.
He managed to shuffle up into a sitting position, leaning up against a mostly intact pillar. He shook his head lightly as a bitter expression formed on his face. Of all the ways he'd imagined he might die, hypothermia in Siberia hadn't made the list.
He was acutely aware of the little-to-no protection against the elements that the damaged suit provided as he began to lose feeling in various body parts. His eyes drooped closed as he began to succumb to the oh-so-inviting darkness of unconsciousness he'd been fighting.
"Tony…"
His eyes opened slowly, and he instantly wondered if he was hallucinating. "Nat?" he mumbled.
"Suit locked?" she asked, eyes sweeping over the darkened and fractured reactor swiftly.
He didn't answer, but managed to find her gaze. He stared at her, a tidal wave of emotions running through him that he couldn't parse out. She'd betrayed him.
"Hang on," she said firmly, eyes dropping from his gaze to look down at the suit once more. She knelt down next to him and flipped open a knife. Where she'd pulled the knife from, he had no clue...but he'd long since given up trying to understand where she hid her weapons. "The release should still function…" she murmured, pushing the knife into the slot next to the broken reactor and angling it around.
"Thought you preferred backstabbing," he said, watching as she shoved the knife further into the suit's chest. Distantly he wondered how she knew so much about his suit.
She paused to look up and meet his gaze with an unreadable expression on her face, but then she twisted the knife and the pieces of the suit collapsed off of him.
"What are you doing here?" he pressed.
"I'm always cleaning up after you boys," she replied, throwing an arm around him and hauling him up to his feet.
His only reply was a grunt as they began to move forward. He wasn't too badly injured, but the cold had settled into his bones, making it near impossible to walk without her taking most of his weight and guiding him.
"How'd you find me?"
"I'm offended that you just asked that."
He might've laughed, if he wasn't so damn frozen.
It was slow going, but eventually they made it out to the quinjet she'd flown in on. She set him down on a bunk and began to pull off his wet clothing.
"You oughta take a guy out to dinner first, Red," he tried to quip as she pulled his pants off. But his mind was dulled by the cold, and it took longer than he thought to deliver the line.
"Shut up, shellhead," she said, grabbing some spare dry clothes and beginning to dress him.
"What're you doing here?" he mumbled, feeling the distant edges of warmth begin to reappear as she wrapped a blanket around him, and then another.
"You already asked that," she reminded him, a worried expression settling onto her face. "Don't go anywhere," she instructed before turning on her heel and disappearing down the ramp into the blizzard.
Even if he could, her tone had left no room for argument, and all things considered, he didn't really think he had it in him to fight another one of his friends today. He blinked tiredly as he tried to comprehend what she was doing. It didn't make any sense.
She returned a few moments later, arms laden with the pieces of his suit. And the damn shield. Oh. So that's what she'd been doing.
"Leave that piece of shit here," he spat out, mustering as fierce a glare as his weakened body would allow.
"No," she replied firmly, walking past him and stowing it in one of the containers. Again, her tone was clipped and all business.
He opened his mouth to argue this time, but she stared him down and interrupted him before he could begin. "Drink that when it's done," she said, pointing to the hot beverage that was brewing. He couldn't tell what it was, but didn't really care. "I'm going to get us up in the air."
An hour later he slid into the co-pilot seat, two blankets still wrapped tightly around him. She spared him only a brief side-eyed glance. They sat in silence as he watched the clouds fly by, and pondered what place she held in his life.
Was she still a teammate? She'd fought by his side...and then let them go. Ross would come for her with everything he had, especially given the absence of his real targets.
Was she still a friend? She'd come back for him and saved his life…
His thoughts drifted to his barbed words. Boy, must be hard to shake the whole double-agent thing, huh? Sticks in the DNA… Her expression had shifted to anger, but he'd caught the ever-so-brief glimpse of hurt before her glare had settled on him. Despite how she'd lobbed it back at him, he knew his words had hit their mark. She had a dark past, riddled with deception and dishonesty, and she'd been fighting for years to make amends for it. And he'd driven a sword right into the heart of it with his words.
"Where are we headed?" he asked, feeling uncomfortable with the silence.
"Compound," she answered succinctly. Her gaze didn't drift from the sky in front of them.
They fell into silence again, and he felt the real questions he wanted to ask begin to crawl up.
"Nat," he ventured, his tone taking on a more serious tone than his usual banter, "why'd you come?"
She was quiet, and he wondered if she was going to answer at all. "Damage control," she said finally.
He frowned. "How'd'you figure?"
She sighed. "I knew you'd go after Steve one way or another. And I knew that the fallout from whatever conversation you might have wasn't going to be pretty."
Anger began to bloom in his chest. "So you were protecting him?" he accused.
She nodded and his expression hardened. "But I was protecting you too," she added.
He shook his head, unable to believe her. "You took his side. You let them go."
"It's not about sides, Tony," she said with another sigh, turning to meet his gaze. "It never was. Yes, I let them go. But I meant what I said - we played this wrong. All of us did. I knew he wasn't going to stop the same way I knew you'd go after him."
He blinked and turned his gaze away from hers and out to the cloudy sky as the heaviness of her words settled on him.
"I know you don't believe me," she continued, her tone dropping into one of an almost resigned sadness. "But I was trying to protect the team."
"He tore the team apart," he replied, tinges of bitterness in his tone. But even as the words left his lips, he knew they were wrong.
"We all tore the team apart," she corrected gently.
He didn't quite know what to say to that, so silence filled the quinjet once more.
The wheels had barely touched the ground and she was already on her way out of the quinjet, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
"Nat," he said, reaching out to grab her and stop her hasty getaway.
She turned and faced him, an unreadable expression on her face as she locked gazes with him.
"I…" he tried, but found no words. He knew that he owed her a thank you at the very least, and probably an apology too, given that she'd saved his life...but he couldn't force the words past his lips. Instead he just stared, trying to understand the expression on her face and reconcile her actions with his feelings.
Her gaze narrowed for the briefest of seconds and then she leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. "Take care of yourself, Tony," she said, slipping out of his grasp and turning on her heel.
He watched as she walked away, quickly disappearing from his view. He made no move to follow, figuring that if he couldn't apologize for his accusations, or thank her for saving his life, then the least he could do was let her go.
I can't pinpoint what it is about this one, but this one flowed really nicely while writing and I really like how it turned out. Immediately after I finished it, I wrote a companion chapter with Steve and Natasha that touches on the same incident. That'll be posted next!
As always, please let me know your thoughts, feedback, and ideas for future. Comments always bring a smile to my face and motivate me to keep writing.
Hope you all are well!