Clint and Natasha had gone out for dinner, and upon returning home, got changed and headed to the gym. Clint was working on some rapid fire techniques for his shooting, and Natasha kept him company as he did so, moving through a series of yoga poses , critiquing Clint's shooting as she did so. The new technique was intense, and Clint called it quits after forty-five minutes, his shoulders feeling wrenched.
Coming out of downward dog, Natasha smiled at him, patting the mat she'd set up beside her with a towel spread across it. Smiling in relief, Clint stripped off his shirt and lay down, as Natasha pulled a bottle of ointment from her pack. A special compilation from S.H.I.E.L.D, it helped with healing aches and pains, and Natasha had known Clint long enough to know that if she'd not been around, he'd have been unable to sleep that night. She worked the ointment into his shoulder joint, and started working on his tense back muscles, her strong hands kneading knots and relaxing muscle fibers. Natasha smiled to herself as she worked, humming a little ditty, as she amused herself with the thought that as an assassin, she could just as easily paralyze Clint with this massage , as make him feel better. The dual aspect of reality she mused, even though the binary ideology was antiquated. It made for simplistic philosophical wanderings.
"Penny for your thoughts," Clint murmured, from his prone position on the floor.
" Just thinking – pleasure and pain principles, duality, blah blah blah," she shared, pressing down on a particularly stubborn knot, eliciting an appreciative gasp from Clint. Wiping her hands free of the oily ointment, she shifted position, coming at the shoulder from a different angle.
" You were thinking about how you'd be able to kill me with a massage, weren't you," Clint chided.
"Only a little."
She grinned as the knot came loose, the muscle movement relaxed once more.
A tingle of electricity shot through her, and she was on her feet, eyes and ears alert. Something was happening, she could feel it. Beside her, Clint was up as well, reaching for his quiver.
"Nat, what is it?" he whispered, as he grabbed his arrows.
Before she could respond, Jarvis chimed in.
"Mr Stark and have been drinking together, and they are now attempting to bring down the tower. An intervention on your parts might be necessary."
"Pull up a security feed Jarvis," Clint ordered, moving to a panel on a wall. The screen flickered, and they saw into Tony's lab. Steve was huddled behind the bar, ducking a shot that Tony had fired from his gauntlet. As the fire subsided, Steve grabbed a bottle and threw it, though his aim was slightly off as Tony opened fire again.
"Budapest?" Natasha inquired, as she watched the screen speculatively.
"No, not Budapest…Toronto," Clint responded. Natasha was obsessed with Budapest.
"Toronto?...Alright. Stark ?"
" Yeap. Captain."
"Let's go."
Passing Natasha a tranquilizer arrow, the two assassins moved to a corner of the room, where a silver airduct jutted out slightly from the ceiling. Stepping swiftly onto Clint's shoulders, Natasha popped the vent, and crawled in, clutching the arrow tightly. As she climbed, Clint headed for the main hallway. As he sprinted for the elevator, he found himself praying fervently that Steve would be alright.
Twenty seconds later, he found himself on Tony's floor. The corridor was filled with smoky, though not enough to impact his vision or his breathing. Nocking an arrow to his bow, he crept forward towards Tony's lab, following the raised voices. The two men seemed to have reached a stalemate, exchanging barbs instead of weapons. As he neared the door, he heard the beginnings of an exchange, that left him chilled
"I always said everything special about you came out of a bottle," Stark rasped, his voice rough, no doubt from the drinking and the yelling.
"Look who's talking," Steve retorted, " I'm not the one who's swallowing everything that's in a bottle in this room. Maybe you're trying to be me."
"Why would I want to be you Cap'? So I can be a blonde muscle boy that has someone else's hand up my ass ? Not that you'd know anything about that would you Cap ?"
Steve chose to respond by hurling a bottle at Tony, which triggered another blast from the gauntlet. Taking that as his cue, Clint dived into the room, turning a somersault and firing his arrow at Steve who was hiding behind the bar. At the same time, Natasha dropped down from the air duct behind Tony, and stabbed him with her arrow, before Tony could accidentally blast Clint. The tranquilizer would last for 3 minutes on a regular human , which Clint estimated gave him 30 seconds to get Steve out of there. Dropping his bow, he pulled the taller man over his shoulders in a fireman's lift, and hurried out of the room, as Natasha dragged Tony, none too gently, towards his bedroom.