a/n: nat and maria are snarky best friends, yep.
i'll swap you time, for a chance
two.
Natasha's stirring her coffee absent-mindedly and filling in a jumbo crossword when she notices a metal arm reaching across for her mug.
She continues stirring, but flicks her eyes up, coming face-to-face with a baby-sized robot elf complete with Santa hat. It glides forward on its legs before grabbing her spoon, extending its sizeable wings (hidden away behind its arms, what the hell?) and leaping from the counter into the air.
"Sorry about that," Bruce says from behind her, reaching up to halt the flying elf in its flight. He turns it over, enters a code, and the elf goes still. "We're still trying them out. But they seem to hold things pretty well, now."
"They?"
"Yeah, Tony and I made them last night. This one's Michael, the other one's Elvis. Elvis is red and gold, of course."
"I'm sure," she says wryly. "What are you doing with them?"
Bruce smiles. "Tony wants elves to deliver his presents and everyone else's. So because we're not asking Thor to give us Asgardian elves, we're making do with these two."
"And knowing Tony, it's going to annoy the hell out of Pepper and Maria, right?"
"Yeah, that may have factored into the designs," he says sheepishly. "But, they could probably deliver coffee too."
"That'll help when they're deciding how to murder them."
Bruce shrugs, "We're hoping they'll last 'til Christmas."
"What are we hoping will last until Christmas?" Maria walks in and makes a beeline for the coffee.
He holds up the elf. "Michael. And Elvis."
She gives it a cursory glance. "You named a pair of flying robots?"
"Tony was thinking of installing a personality for both of them, actually. I told him it was probably a bit too much."
"Thank god," Maria snarks. "We've already got a flying robot with a personality in the form of Tony Stark."
As if to prove a point, Michael jumps out of Bruce's grasp without warning, tumbles to the counter, and proceeds to do ten combat rolls in quick succession.
(To be fair, Natasha kind of thinks the flying robot elves are adorable. She'll take that to her grave, though.)
"Okay, I'm going to go… fix this," he says, grabbing the elf and making a hasty exit.
Maria mutters into her mug, "What the fuck is going on?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Natasha smirks. "Since when are you here before eight?"
"I'm usually here before eight. I have an apartment upstairs and I work in Stark's building."
"No, I meant here, as in this particular kitchen."
"It has the good coffee," she replies sarcastically.
At Nat's disbelieving look, she sighs, "Team morale at Christmas, apparently."
"Ah."
She frowns, "What the hell does that mean?"
"Steve put you up to this, didn't he?"
"He ambushed me at SI's Christmas fundraiser," Maria admits while glaring at her friend.
"And you couldn't say no?"
"Of course I could have."
"But…?"
"None of your goddamn business, Romanoff."
"Okay," Natasha readily shrugs, turning back to her crossword and tapping her pen thoughtfully against her own mug.
Maria starts scrolling through her tablet (one of a handful of things she genuinely enjoys courtesy of Stark Industries – the others being: her view from her apartment floor, the seemingly endless supply of excellent coffee from the Heads of Departments lounge, the clean gym on the twenty-second floor that no one seems to use, pens that don't run out of ink after a week, and her larger private sector salary), fingers dancing across the screen, pulling information from all corners of the internet, public or otherwise. She feels her mind racing, assembling pictures and strategies, a rush that she'll admit not even the best coffee on the dreariest of mornings provides. It's a testament to the intensity of her internet perusal that her breakfast companion only interrupts after a solid twenty minutes of silence.
"Have you ever-"
"God, Nat, just let it go. Please."
"You don't know what I was going to say." And if the Black Widow could do petulant, this would definitely be it.
"Give me some credit," Maria says, exasperated. "If you're going to keep guessing or whatever, I'm going to go."
"You're going to want to leave, then," Natasha grins.
Maria shoots her another icy glare before grabbing her mug and tablet and striding from the room, leaving Natasha to finish her crossword with an idea half-formed in her mind.
...
"Dude, that's really creepy," a hoarse voice whispers.
Steve finishes off the sketch of a face before craning his head up.
"What are you doing up there?"
"Watching," Barton shrugs from his vantage point – a storage niche conveniently carved into the corner of the wall, with the books that resided there thirty minutes ago haphazardly tossed aside. "Observing. You know, the usual."
"And that's not creepy at all," Steve counters.
"It's what I do," he responds flatly. "You, on the other hand, are drawing people without telling them. It's like you're stalking them with a camera, but slower."
"It's what I do," Steve parrots the words back. "And did, back in the day. Like a hobby."
He turns his attention back to the sketch in front of him, subtly glancing up at the two figures seated at the kitchen counter, engaging in some sort of heated discussion. Probably about Asgardian Christmas decorations or thermonuclear space projections (or something close enough – Steve's certain he will never understand), knowing Thor and Jane. To his relief, Clint doesn't say anything until he signs the corner.
"What are you going to do with them?" Clint asks, nodding towards the drawings.
"Christmas presents," he says quietly. "Thought I could get frames or something."
"Huh," Barton says, pausing. "That's not a bad idea."
"… Thanks?"
"Don't get me wrong, it's still kinda creepy. But, you know, it's probably only something Captain America could get away with."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Yeah. But remember, me and Nat see everything," Barton says mock gravely. "We'll know when you're deciding to stalk us."
"Right, point taken."
(And later that night, when Tony and Clint are animatedly discussing new arrow technology and the merits of night-vision goggles, Steve catches Nat's eye and grins.)
...
She's sitting alone, facing the intricate New York skyline, when she hears a faint set of footsteps approach. She closes her eyes, counts them, before looking up and warily regarding the intruder.
"Stark and Barton still talking weapons?"
"Moved onto night-vision goggles, actually."
Maria snorts, "Barton's never going to use them."
"I know," Nat agrees. "But Tony has to lose every now and then. Also, it's providing inspiration for Steve." She indicates her head toward the lone figure sitting at the counter, absently chewing on the end of the pencil.
"Of course."
Natasha looks at Steve, then over at her friend. "Seriously, what are you doing here? You don't socialise."
"Not in my job description, especially not with a ragtag team of Fury's superheroes."
"Doesn't mean you can't-"
"-And you're not the first person to think that-"
"-Also doesn't mean you have to cave. You don't cave. So, why?"
"It's Christmas," Maria says sardonically. "If you can't beat them, join them."
"Or, you couldn't say no to Captain America," Nat remarks slyly.
She ignores the comment and stares at the drink in her hand. It's minutes before she speaks again, quieter and bitter and tired. "It's easier to have a sane person on the same side. I don't have an international counter-intelligence agency anymore."
(And Natasha gets it, understands in a way that her much younger self would scoff at derisively. Understands in a way that she wouldn't have prior to S.H.I.E.L.D. and everything after and in between.)
"Yeah, he made it much easier to blow up the Triskelion," Nat quips.
Maria shoots her a crooked smile, acknowledging her attempt to lighten the tension. "That said, he does have a tendency for sacrificial heroics."
Nat shrugs and raises her glass in a mock salute, "To Captain America."
Maria rolls her eyes and stands. "'Night, Nat."
"See you in the morning," she calls after her. She watches as Maria makes her way over to the kitchen, stops and laughs lightly with the captain at the sketch in front of them. Watches as he squeezes the lieutenant's hand before she leaves through the glass doors, as he stares for a minute before returning to the page in front of him.
(And it's not until Barton's perfectly rebutted all of Tony's arguments and joined her on the couch that her idea morphs into a plan.)