Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. Title and opening quote from Stephen Danos's Genesis. For the GWYO setting bingo spot pictured below. Thanks A for beta help!

Silicone outlasts latex
Direct sunlight outlasts silicone
Bastards outlast legitimacy
Bastards fast in the monastery
Monsters outlast poets
Poets outlive the monsters

"I admit, I was expecting more athletic or gymnastic positions with nicknames like the slithering straw saw when we started this," Tony said.

Natasha was on top as usual, her forearms resting on his chest as he fucked her and she did sort of undulate her hips, his hands tight on her magnificent butt. She didn't moan because she never did that, but she was breathing deeply and her chest was flushed. She said, "Do you like sexual activity that's associated with saws?"

He could feel her, inside of her and she did a thing that should have a name and he arched his back and came loudly. She sat up slowly and dragged his hand to meet hers at her clit. She still didn't moan but he felt her come. He said, "No, you're right, saws bad."

She got off him gracefully and laid on her side next to him. "Is this disappointing to you?"

"Not in the slightest," Tony said. "Never."

Natasha shifted so she was on her back. She said, "Pepper's dating again."

"He's a really nice guy," Tony said. "I want her to be happy. I'm sorry, did you think I didn't know? She runs my company."

"I knew you knew, I just wanted to say it," Natasha said. She got up off the bed and went into the bathroom.

He followed her in. She'd already turned on the shower. He got in behind her. "Are we having an issue?"

She turned and smiled at him. "You'd know if we were having an issue."

"Because there would be a saw involved," Tony said.

He was looking at her back but he could somehow see her roll her eyes.

In the morning she sat naked, encased in a very expensive fluffy robe, on the hotel provided chaise lounge. She said, "Room service is coming?"

"I've even figured out what you like," he said. He'd put on boxers so one of them could answer the door. He looked up from his tablet because she was sitting with her legs crossed.

"This isn't a serious thing," she said, confidently.

"Of course not, we've known each other for years, we've spent the last six weeks having sex with each other exclusively, but it's all for fun," Tony said.

"You think it's serious?" Natasha almost sounded mocking.

"I don't, you're right. But the sex is seriously fantastic and I'm surprised how much you seem to enjoy being around me almost 24/7," Tony said.

"I'm surprised, too," she said.

After they ate breakfast, Natasha left her robe on the lounge and pulled his boxers off. "Should I be more acrobatic this time?"

"Please no, I'm good," he said. She was already pushing at his thighs, licking his dick in a delightfully obscene manner.

"You know what surprised me?" She was tugging gently and firmly up and down on his wet dick and despite where his hand was, talking evenly.

He grunted as she turned around and lowered herself so he was right in her tight pussy and he got to grab her glorious breasts so he could thrust up. She said, less evenly, "I assumed you'd be shitty in bed."

"And I'm not apparently," he said. He knew better than to pound like a jackhammer, which he was glad Natasha had noticed. He thrust at the speed she clearly preferred, panted into her shoulder, his eyes on the thin scar there. She had far fewer scars than he expected.

She threw her head back against his shoulder as she came, trembling.

He was fully dressed and she was using a flat iron on her hair when she decided to bring it up again. "I assumed you'd be shitty in bed because you were rich and famous all your life and you're not unattractive."

"So I'd never have sex with women who would talk back to me? Tell me I should actually do more than sit there with my tongue out when I went down on them?"

She smiled at him. "Yes."

"You underestimate me. That's exactly the kind of person I prefer to have sex with. Talk back to me, shove my head where they want it by grabbing my hair, tell me not to come until they had had theirs," he said.

"Even before Pepper," Natasha said.

"Way before Pepper," Tony said.

Nick Fury tricked him into lunch with his usual subterfuge and misdirects. "I thought I was having lunch with someone from a major corporation and instead I get the unemployed spy guy. Are you checking on my intentions with Romanov?"

"I'm checking on you," Fury said. "You've been very busy."

"I'm always very busy," Tony said. "Right now I'm very busy with things you should be doing, frankly."

"I shouldn't be doing anything," Fury said. "I'm retired. Besides, you're doing fine."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I am not doing fine. I've just barely managed to get an actual team of Avengers together, it took me forever to get everyone cleared after Cap's jailbreak, Natasha and I are barely turning these Accords to our side, I am falling down completely in the department of creating things for my own company and I just got tricked into having lunch with you so I have to talk about all these things."

Fury smiled. "That sounds like fine to me." Fury ate some damned expensive steak Tony was sure he was going to pay for. "I hear Pepper's dating someone."

"He's a very nice guy," Tony said. "Unless she lied to me and she's dating you and you called me here to spring that on me."

"I'm a very nice guy," Fury said. "But I'm not dating Pepper."

"Me neither," Tony said, keeping his wince internal. "Hey, I'm also in a relationship that is making me happy. Do you think all of Pepper's friends are bringing that up to her?" He really hoped not. He'd told Pepper after two weeks, because he didn't want her to hear from someone else. Pepper had said Natasha had told her a week earlier. But she'd smiled when she said it.

"I doubt it," Fury said. "Let's talk about the Accords. Bounce some ideas off me."

"Because you care," Tony said.

"Actually, I do," Fury said.

He and Natasha went on a two person mission. He was the muscle and distraction, she was the stealth intruder taking advantage of the inattention. He flew around the outside of the building, shattering windows and taking out security systems. Natasha walked in calmly. She said into coms, "Stop humming."

"Is it irritating?" A team of four robots barreled towards the broken window, weapons out. Tony blasted the supports on either side of them so the ceiling collapsed on them. "The fourth floor is now on the third floor, so be careful about that."

"As long as you stop humming," she said.

He flew lower since he knew she was headed for the basement. He smashed through the doors and waited for the assembled robots to start coming for him.

Natasha, of course, got away without a hair out of place and he ended up with numerous contusions and a sure to be huge bruise on his side. Natasha shrugged at his flinching. "Do you want me to do something for you?"

"Blowjob?"

"I'd like to remind you both that you are still on coms," Vision said smoothly.

"It's just the three of us," Tony said. "Are you really upset?"

"It's not like we're leaving the coms on while that happens," Natasha said.

"I am so glad I am not the person you are obliquely referencing there," Tony said.

Natasha actually laughed. When he did get back and got the armor off and Natasha had dropped off the hard drives and debriefed, she did give him a fantastic blowjob. Then she got up and rinsed her mouth, turning from the sink like she was going to leave. "Hey, hey," he said. "I reciprocate. I just need you to sit in that chair over there because my knees are shot and I need you more at the level where I can sit on my ass."

She smiled at him again. Then she took off her pants and sat down in the low chair, spreading her legs.

They mostly fucked in his suite at the compound, or the luxury hotel he'd bought in Manhattan. She hadn't been to his technical homes in New York City or Montecito but he kept those mostly to store things and tinker with his toys. He didn't care that she barely let him in her room at the compound or wherever else she had places to live. This one day they'd been in Chicago, and she did take him to one of her own places. He snooped without shame.

"Did you really read this book of advice from Dear Sugar?"

"You'd like it," she said, going straight to the kitchen. "How do you feel about pizza?"

"That you make by hand just for me?" He started flipping through the book. "Or ordered from your favorite local place where it's just right?"

"Delivered, asshole."

"What was asshole about that?"

"Your entire tone," she said, taking the book from him and sitting down on the comfortable looking couch. She didn't sound the least bit angry with him and he was fairly sure she wasn't.

"Chicago is one of those cities where people insist that the local pizza is far superior to any other city and I just don't see it," Tony said. He sat down next to her. The couch was comfortable. He took the book back. "Do you stay here often?"

"Not recently," she said. She ordered the pizza, then just looked at him. "Are you actually reading the book?"

"You said I should," Tony said.

"I said you'd like it, but you probably should read it, too. You do need advice and counsel," she said.

"Isn't that what I have you and Fury and Vision and Rhodey for?" He was already ten pages in.

"You have me for advice and counsel?"

He shrugged. "You give me advice. Are you objecting to the having you part?"

"I'm not objecting," she said. "Just surprised you'd admit it."

"What do you do in these super secret spy safe houses? You do have a TV, do you play video games? Do you use that laptop for your super secret fake identity that lives in Chicago and does have strong opinions about pizza?" He decided he did actually like the book. He put it down so he could read it later and pay deeper attention.

"How do you make that sound so dismissive? I'm very good at my job," she said. She still wasn't angry with him.

"You're a master, I am full of respect for your work," he said sincerely. "It's not a job I could ever have and I can't say that about a lot of professions."

"Snap your fingers and you're a heart surgeon, though?" She smiled at him.

"I could do it," Tony said. "But I can't be anonymous or just be someone else."

She shifted closer to him. They were practically snuggling. She said, "It's not as fun as you might think."

He said, "Do you think Bruce is dating someone new?"

She sighed. "Probably not. He's probably not dating anyone."

"I miss the guy," Tony said. "Maybe not in the same ways you do."

"You and I have done a lot more than Bruce and I ever did," she said. "Sexually, I mean."

"I assumed, yes," Tony said. "But I bet he was capable of making you angry."

"I get angry with you all the time," she said. Then she closed her eyes and leaned back against his shoulder. They were officially cuddling. She said, "I know what you mean. Do you want more from me?"

He touched her hair, smoothing it down. "Do you want more from me?"

"Are we having some sort of relationship talk? I want to put that off until the pizza comes," she said.

"I wouldn't say we don't have a relationship to talk about it, because we do have our not having sex with other people only having sex with each other relationship," Tony said. "I don't know, I'm just talking. I enjoy our time together."

"Let's enjoy it quietly," Natasha said.

The pizza was indeed from a local around the corner place that proudly declared how very Chicago its pizza was on the box. It was delicious. Then she said, "Okay, are we having some kind of relationship talk?"

"No, no," Tony said. "I was just asking questions. It's what I do."

"You're not chickening out, are you?"

"Actually, no," Tony said. "It was a momentary whim."

They went to bed without even having sex, though they made up for it in the morning. Natasha even got out some of her toys. "Pack that one up," he said, pointing at the pink one. "You can put that up my ass again anytime."

"And you were just saying how vanilla we were," Natasha said, putting the handcuffs away.

"I never said we were vanilla, I specifically said we were much less gymnastic than I expected," Tony said. "I don't actually care if we're vanilla or not or gymnastic or not. You're happy, I'm happy, we're good." He scratched at one of his scars. "But I was serious about the pink one."

In Amsterdam, she was the one who had to do all the work, and she came back to their hotel bruised and exhausted. He sat behind her in the bath, rubbing her shoulders then groping her soapy breasts. She made a happy sound that wasn't at all a moan. He lifted her up so she was laying on him, not the bathtub. Then he was touching her between her legs, tracing circles, opening her wide.

She said, "Penetrative sex is a bad idea in a tub full of bathwater."

"I love it when you talk dirty," he said. He still managed to make her come from his hands.

She got out of the tub without splashing water everywhere, more than he managed. He said, "Penetrative sex is okay now, right?"

"I don't know, I got off already," she said. She didn't even smile but he could hear it in her voice. He watched her swaying perfect hips and ass as she walked to the bed. "You idiot, come over here."

"Right, but you've had a long day, so you know, I'll be on top, you can just lay back and think about Mother Russia," he said.

"I will never have sex with you like that," she said. "I think I can manage to be on top." Which she did, magnificently.

A week later, after a number of interruptions, he finally had the half hour he needed to finish the Dear Sugar book. He handed it back to Natasha while she was naked on his bed. He was naked, too. They spent a lot of time naked together, he was a fan of it. She said, "Pepper broke up with that nice guy."

"I know," he said. "Is this the part where you expect me to break up with you? I'm not going to. I might, the future is essentially unknowable, but we broke up, Pepper and me. And before she had the nice guy you and I were already having exclusive sex with each other."

Natasha sat up and looked at him calmly. "Please don't say you love me."

"Actually I was going to say you were right about the book, I did like it," Tony said. "And I do love you, like that sort of generic love of humanity that drives us to do good and all that, the way I love everyone. Except bad people."

"I feel pretty generic about you, too," she said. "Sex or sleep?"

"You're going to judge me and mention how much younger you are than me, but I think I prefer sleep," Tony said.

"Honestly, same here," she said.

When the lights were off and they were both under his favorite softest sheets, she turned to him and snuggled closer. He smoothed her hair and closed his eyes.